Bank branches in South Korea will open at 9:30 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. starting in April 2027, cutting 30 minutes from the hours tellers serve customers in person. Standard branches currently operate from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Korean Financial Industry Union and the Korea Federation of Banks' employers council reached a tentative agreement on the 2026 industry-wide collective bargaining deal containing those terms on the 28th, according to financial industry sources.
The two sides produced the agreement after about five months and more than 50 rounds of negotiations, including talks between chief delegates and working-level sessions, since their first meeting in April. The process also involved mediation by the National Labor Relations Commission, a general strike and overnight sit-ins.
Citing changes in the financial environment and in how customers use banks, the two sides agreed to move the opening time to 9:30 a.m. as a general rule from April 2027. In-person service hours at standard branches will fall to six hours and 30 minutes from the current seven, which run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The later opening reflects a judgment that branches need enough time to prepare before serving customers, in line with those changes in the financial environment and in customer behavior. The union said the change will also allow banks to do more for customer service and financial consumer protection. Yoon Seok-gu, chairman of the Korean Financial Industry Union, called it "the first 30-minute reduction in bank business hours since the founding of the nation."
Banks had temporarily shortened their hours to 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. during the spread of COVID-19 before returning to 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in January 2023. If the agreement takes effect, branches will return to a 9:30 a.m. opening after about four years.
The two sides agreed to revisit business hours if working-hour systems change in the future, such as through a 4.5-day workweek. The agreement does not directly incorporate a 4.5-day week, but it creates a flexible start-time system that lets employees push back their arrival by up to one hour a week and up to 30 minutes a day.
On Fridays, banks will introduce a customer cutoff system known as "last call," along with a compensatory leave plan. Hours that employees were unable to use under the existing one-hour early-departure system on Fridays can be taken as compensatory leave, capped at two days a year, to make the system more effective.
The overall wage increase was set at 3.0% after both sides made concessions, with individual institutions and their unions to decide based on their own circumstances. The agreement also includes a plan for management to fund roughly 100 billion won ($71 million) for measures such as new hiring of young workers.
The age limit for children covered by parental leave will be extended through the sixth grade of elementary school, and the program allowing employees with children in the lower grades of elementary school to adjust their working hours will be extended. The two sides also agreed to improve working conditions through changes to the mystery shopping program and an expansion of paternity leave (leave for the spouse of a new parent).
The agreement does not, however, address the relocation of state-run banks such as the Korea Development Bank, the Export-Import Bank of Korea and Industrial Bank of Korea to provincial areas.
