Bank Holidays
To be a current client of a bank means not only to use the services of a bank and know your bills balance and all bank rates, you also need to know about the bank holidays in order top plan your work and rest. Types of bank holiday vary from the public holidays to the holiday of a certain bank that takes place in the USA and internationally. Bank holidays are so called because they are days upon which banks are shut and therefore (traditionally) no other businesses could operate.
Generally, public holidays include bank holidays, holidays by Royal Proclamation and 'common law holidays'. The Royal proclamation is used to shift bank holidays that would otherwise fall on a weekend Banks are not allowed to operate on bank holidays. When public holidays in the Christmas and New Year period fall on Saturdays and Sundays, alternative week days are declared public holidays. And this concerns not only the UK bank holiday, but also the federal bank holidays in the US. Thus in the list of 2007 bank holidays the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act was given royal assent, making 30 November (or the nearest Monday if a weekend) a bank holiday in Scotland. In such a manner in 2007 bank holidays in the UK have increased in number so you can have a good rest on bank holiday events. Although there is no legal right to time off on these days, the majority of the population not employed in essential services receives them as holidays.
There are currently 8 permanent public and bank holidays in England, Wales and Scotland and 10 in Northern Ireland. These include Christmas Day and Good Friday, which in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are common law' holidays. 2007 bank holiday weekend, apart form the above mentioned bank holidays, include also May bank holiday celebrations, and August bank holiday weekend events. It is worth to mention that shop on bank holidays regardless the bank holiday events, are usually open but bank workers do not have a statutory right to paid leave on bank holidays. If paid leave is given on a public or bank holiday, this may count towards the four weeks minimum holiday entitlement.
In the United States, banks are generally closed on all federal holidays, but the term federal bank holiday refers specifically to emergency bank closures mandated by executive order or act of Congress to remedy financial crises, for example the Emergency Banking Act of 1933. Constitutionally, there are no "national holidays" in the United States, instead, there are federal holidays, state holidays, city holidays, and so on. Currently, there are eleven U.S. Federal holidays, most (but not all) of which are also state holidays and May bank holiday celebrations and August bank holiday weekend events can be proclaimed only by Federal Congress.
To sum up, it is obvious that bank holidays in the UK differ from the bank holidays in the US but still there are common traits such as bank holiday weekend and bank holiday events as museums, historic houses, sports centers and other public attractions when the bank clients as well as the bank employees may have a good rest before the working week and achieving your financial goals and aspirations.
