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If you've tried to walk into a bank branch this week and found the shutters down more often than up, you're not imagining things. Between Onam, Milad-un-Nabi and Raksha Bandhan, the last week of August has turned into something of an obstacle course for anyone needing a physical branch, and there's one more closure still to come before things settle down.

Banks across India, from SBI and PNB to ICICI and HDFC, don't set their own holiday schedules. They follow the Reserve Bank of India's official calendar, which factors in national holidays, state-specific festivals, and the standing rule that banks close on every second and fourth Saturday, plus every Sunday.

Bank Holidays Over The Weekend

Two of this week's regional closures, Tuesday's Milad-un-Nabi and Onam observances in Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and Wednesday's larger wave of Id-e-Milad and Thiruvonam holidays across states including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi, have already come and gone.

What's left is Friday, August 28, when branches in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Rajasthan, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh will down shutters for Raksha Bandhan, according to the RBI's calendar. Sunday, August 30 brings the usual weekend closure everywhere.

There's a small silver lining, though: Saturday, August 29 is a fifth Saturday, and the RBI's rule only mandates closures on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month. That means branches will be open as normal that day, offering a brief window before the weekend shutdown.

Bank Holidays Next Week

Things ease up considerably from next week, with banks open for five to six days depending on your state. The one date worth ringing in your calendar is Friday, September 4, when a long list of cities, among them Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram, will see branches shut for Janmashtami, marking Krishna Jayanthi.

So when exactly can you walk into a branch?

Worth remembering: even on working days, branch counters don't stay open round the clock. Public-facing service typically runs from around 10am to 4pm, though this can vary slightly between individual banks and between public and private sector lenders, so it's always worth a quick check before you head out, particularly if you're cutting it fine.

Here's the bit that tends to get lost in all the holiday-calendar panic: none of this affects your phone or laptop. Branch closures are exactly that, closures of physical counters. Online banking, mobile apps, NEFT, RTGS, UPI and ATMs carry on working exactly as they would on any other day, holidays and weekends included. So unless you specifically need a teller, a cheque book, or a signature verified in person, there's genuinely no need to reshuffle your plans around any of these dates.