1. Prologue
2. Banking related Questions in IBPS interview
   1. Banking Theory / Current affairs
   2. Banking Theory
   3. Banking Topics on Mrunal.org/Economy
   4. Banking Current
   5. Previous Interview Questions
3. Economy related
4. Current Affairs related Question
5. HRM
6. GK questions

Prologue

Total five articles on how to prepare for IBPS Bank Interviews

1. Stop Feeling Guilty and Tell me about yourself, Stupid cutoffs and Insecurities about Profile
2. Why BankPO? Preparing the Sales Pitch: Career growth, job satisfaction, negative factors, work-profile, Promotion, hierarchy, Sample Answers
3. Interview Questions related to Banking, Economy, Current Affairs, HR and GK related questions (You’re here)
4. Interview questions related to Graduation IT, B.E., B.Tech, Biotech, B.Com, BBA, Arts, sample questions from previous interviews
5. Stress Interviews, When things don’t go as planned for BE, B.Tech, Engineers and IT graduates

Banking related Questions in IBPS interview

Personal/ Role playing (meaning involves “you” as a person)

1. Most important: Why do you want to join banking sector? (Sales pitch must be ready. Click me).
2. Most important: What if you’re posted in remote area far away from your hometown? Are you ok with that? Will you be comfortable posted in rural or naxal areas? Who will look after your family?
3. What is guarantee that you’ll not leave banking sector? You seem too young and confused to handle the job pressure here. (Yes, they’ve asked this in past!)
4. If you’re a branch manager, how will you increase the profit of the branch? How will you attract more customers? (Hint: Branch manager is not a door to door salesman. his strategy has to be bigger.)
5. If bank introduces a new home loan product, how will you sell it? (Hint: Contact builders and real estate developers of the city, free publicity through social networking site, pamphlets etc.etc.)
6. A customer has made FD of 10 lakhs, but within 6 months, he comes back to break his FD for to purchase a car. How will you handle? (Hint: offer him car loan, show the comparative advantage of taking car loan vs breaking FD before maturity vs tax benefit etc.etc.)
7. What are three points that make you better banker than people sitting outside?
8. What is the most recent bank related advertisement you’ve seen. And what do you think about it? Was it attractive or was it poorly designed?
9. As a customer if you’ve to open a bank account, which bank will you chose? What factors will you consider before picking a bank?
10. In which bank do you have an account already? How you feel as a customer? If you were in working in the same bank, what initiatives will you take for more customer satisfaction?
11. Assume that you have been selected and after you probation period you are posted somewhere in India as a Branch Manager and Branch is in not a good position. What steps you will take to bring it on right path?
12. IF you have being allotted target to increase business in some backward area, what will you do?
13. In your branch suppose following happens, what will you do?
    1. A poor person has come, he has no documents for KYC form but he wishes to open account.
    2. electricity is gone and customers are complaining
    3. Some staff member is on leave and customers are getting restless.

Avoid silly mistakes (based on past interviews)

1. RBI and Central bank of India are not same.

2. As such, Public sector banks have combined post of CMD (Chairman + MD). But SBI is exception: It has one chairman and four managing directors. so don’t fumble when asked about the “what is the designation?”
3. for your top preference banks, you must know
   1. Name of CMD.
   2. location of head office
   3. Rough idea of their number of branches and turnover.
   4. Celebrity Brand Ambassador, if any.
   5. Any special savings/loan schemes/accounts.

Banking Theory

First revise all the Banking topics that you had already prepared for the IBPS written exam. List is given here:
https://mrunal.org/2013/09/studyplan-ibps-cwe-pomt-general-awareness-ga-banking-awareness-computer-awareness-priority-topics-trend-analysis.html#min

Banking Topics on Mrunal.org/Economy

I’ve written lot of stuff on lot issues. But then it becomes confusing what to read and what to leave before the interviews. But at minimum, go through following articles related to Banking:

1. [Economic Survey Ch4] Inflation, WPI, CPI, monetary policy
2. [Economic Survey Ch5] Financial Intermediaries: Banks, RRBs, NBFCs (Part 3 of 3)
3. [Economy] Liquidity Adjustment facility (LAF), Marginal Standing facility (MSF), Repo, reverse repo, SLR, CRR, NEFT, RTGS, NDTL: meaning explained
4. [Economy] Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) Controversy between SBI & RBI: meaning, implication on Economy Explained
5. [Economy] Banking Business Correspondents Agents (BCA): Meaning, functions, Financial Inclusion, Swabhimaan, Common Service Centres (CSC)
6. [Economy] Banking Ombudsman: Meaning, functions, appointment, reforms explained
7. [Economy] SARFAESI Act, Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC), Security Receipts (SR), QIB, DRT, Central Registry
8. [Economy] Banking Amendment Bill: Issues, Features, Problems, Reforms meaning explained
9. [Economy] Cheque Truncation System (CTS-2010): Meaning, Advantages explained
10. [Economy] Barter-Money-Bitcoin: Fungibility, Double coincidence of wants, division of labour (Part 1)
11. [Economy] Barter-Money-Bitcoin: Circular Flow of Income, Savings to Investment, Time Value of Money, Deferred Payments (Part 2)
12. [Economy] Money-Bitcoin: Functions of Money, Exchange Medium, Transfer Value-NEFT-RTGS-Bitcoins, Money Illusion, Overcapitalization (Part 3)

After this, if time is left, you can go through remaining summaries of Economy surveys, IIP, Fiscal deficit, GAAR, DST and many other topics related to finance and taxation. Available on Mrunal.org/Economy

Banking Current

List is long, but you need to have some idea on following “hot” topics:

1. Bitcoins related issues (Already given in above links.)
2. white label ATM and financial inclusion.
3. Banking licensing for new banks. its impact on public sector banks. GK things like “committee is headed by the former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan.”
4. COBRAPOST sting operation on money laundering by banks. and the subsequent action by RBI. And what should be done to prevent it in future.
5. SBI’s top officials caught in 400 cr. loan scam by CBI.
6. All India women’s bank and GK related to it (e.g. dress code is yello-blue saree, Usha Ananthasubramanian is chairperson, what is the corpus, how much % owned by government etc.)
7. That in December, RBI did not change policy rates despite rise in inflation. Was it the right decision?
8. That recently Axis bank’s FDI limit is raised to 62%. Is this good / bad for banking sector? Are we risking a sub-prime crisis situation like in USA?

Previous Interview Questions

Long descriptive / opinion type

1. What is Priority sector lending? (followup) Should farmers be given loan at cheaper rate when they’re already getting subsidy on fertilizer and diesel?
2. We should abolish concept of CRR, and we should have just insurance of deposit? Do you agree?
3. What are the two main problems banks are facing today? and What should be done to solve them?
4. What are your views on strikes by Bank employees?
5. What do you think deregulation of saving account is good step?
6. What is no frill account? How does it help in Financial Inclusion? Does opening no frill account sufficient to achieve the process of fin.inclusion?
7. Which banking sector is stronger: Indian or western? And why?
8. Which banks are better private or PSU? and why?
9. What role does bank play in empowerment of women?
10. What role has banking sector played in India’s success story?
11. What do you know about bancassurance? Is it good or is it bad?
12. Difference between investment banker and retail banker? Which one is more important for economy?
13. Why should bank consider Debt equity structure of a company before loaning?

Factual / Objective type

1. NPA, its classification, ways to recover? (Hint: NPA classification must be mugged up verbatim. else they’ll deliberately ask followup questions to confuse you.)
2. What is Negotiable instruments act? (hint: related with Cheque bouncing)
3. Who is NRI? Can a NRI open an account in a bank as a normal citizen? Can PIO open an account in Indian bank as a normal citizen? What are the documents required for opening an NRI Account? Can a student studying abroad be termed as an NRI?
4. Tell us about “Nomination” facility in banking.
5. What do you understand by KYC? What document required for KYC? What documents are required to open a bank account?
6. CBS, SWIFT, NEFT, RTGS. What are their full forms, features and benefits?
7. NPM, LRM, ARC, SARFAESI ACT
8. All the basics: RBI, its functions, repo, reverse repo, CRR, SLR and their impact on bank.
9. How can RBI control inflation?
10. How many Deputy Governor in RBI? Name them?
11. Apart from currency issue and supervision of banks what other functions RBI performs?
12. NABARD and its role.
13. How will you market Banking products?
14. Difference between public sector bank vs private sector bank.
15. Top 5 foreign banks, top 5 private banks, and ranked on what basis.
16. Basel Norms, PSU-shareholding by government.
17. What is refinance?
18. ECGC, packing credit, buyer’s credit, letter of credit.
19. Sources of income of bank except interests.
20. Main difference between Banks and NBFC.
21. What do you know about Rural banking and Financial Inclusion?
22. What is ombudsman? what is his powers and functions?
23. What is MFI? From where does MFI get funds?
24. How is rural banking different from retail banking?
25. What is the difference between hacking and phishing?
26. Equitable Mortgage? interest subvention? Amortization?
27. Car Loan, Personal Loan, student loans, home loans, education loans (and what are their on going approx. interest rates?)
28. What is CBS (Core Banking Solution)?
29. What is ABSA account?
30. What is Swawlamban scheme?
31. What is POS terminal? How bank gets benefited from POS? What amount bank charge from shopkeepers for POS terminals?
32. Tell me something about E-Banking? and its benefits to branch?
33. What is branchless banking?
34. Various types of Banks and their examples
35. Difference between banking n finance
36. Difference between micro financial institutions and NBFCs.
37. Difference between between Co-operative societies and SHGs
38. Who are the Chairman of ICICI Bank and Axis Bank.
39. What is money laundering? What has the government done to prevent it? What’s Bank’s role in preventing money laundering?
40. How important is CASA Portfolio for the bank
41. What is term deposit and demand deposit?
42. What are alternate channels of banking?
43. Have you ever used an ATM? What is the full form of ATM? Can you Name some ATM Manufacturer Companies? What are the other uses of an ATM? Balance Enquiry, Cash Withdrawal, Pin Change, Mini Statement.

Finance related

Finance related questions are usually not asked as such, unless you’re from B.Com/BBA/MBA. But still doesn’t hurt preparing a few basic things just to be safe.

Some questions asked in past:

1. What is the difference between banking and finance?
2. What is Credit Rating agency?
3. What is working capital? What are preferential shares?
4. What is more beneficial to a company- Equity or Debentures?
5. What is DEMAT account? What is PAN card? Are they same thing?

Economy related

• As such more questions are from banking sector, than from Economy topics.
• Newspaper + Ramesh Singh + Mrunal.org/Economy =the economy portion should not pose much problem.
• Within Economy, most stuff is related to static / theory portion. but you need to have some rough idea of the current Issues such as rupee weakening, inflation indexed bonds, FDI, NSEL crisis etc.

Some of the questions asked in previous interviews:

1. What provisions did this year’s budget have for the banking sector?
2. What if government asks RBI to print more currency notes and uses it for development and infrastructure projects? How will it affect the middle class?
3. Do the Agricultural crops sold by d farmers in d market comes under income tax?
4. What was last year’s GDP in crores and in % growth?
5. What is recession? what are the causes? how can it be fixed?
6. What is the difference between Finance ministry and commerce ministry?
7. What is Inflation? How it is controlled?
8. What is HDI(Human Development Index)? How is it calculated? What is India’s rank?
9. Poverty figure census, schemes.
10. MNREGA and other schemes where bank is involved.
11. What are Foreign Reserves?
12. What are Small Scale Industries? How we recognize if a particular industry is a Small Scale Industries?
13. Difference between organized and unorganized sector?
14. Functions of planning commission? Targets of current five year plan? Who is Montek Singh?
15. BRICS, ASEAN G20 summits and decisions recently
16. Why dollar is appreciating?  What are merits and demerits of rupee depreciation?
17. Why there is so much furor over FDI in retail? Are you in favour of FDI?
18. Tell me about factors of production
19. What is parallel economy? What is black market? What is money laundering?

Current Affairs related Question

• In most cases, interview is centered around “Intro + Grad + Sales Pitch + Banking”.  By that time it’ll be 15 minutes, they’ll ask you to leave. And hence as such non-banking, non-economy related current affairs questions usually absent.
• But still some brief awareness is necessary just to be ‘safe’ and to avoid stress interview.
• since very few days left before interview, there is no time for full-fledged revision of current affairs from Jan to December.
• My advice: since 2013 is about to end, most newspapers (English, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugue, Marathi… all of them will release special edition with colorful photos about what happened in 2013. In those editions, you’ll find all the clichéd topics necessary e.g. Janlokpal, Mangalyaan, Iran-US peacedeal, Devyani, Food security, etc. (donot throw away this edition. Preserve it for other interviews as well.)
• Additional source: The Hindu website will provide a “diary of events”. (That may take time, for example for “2012 diary”, they uploaded it on 7^th January 2013) But keep a lookout for it.Very useful.

HR Related

(Asked in previous interviews)

Essential: What are you strengths and weakness? What have you done to overcome your weaknesses? (Yes, this is pretty clichéd HR question but in bank interviews, they sometimes ask this.)

Others:

1. If you will improve this weakness then will you become a perfect man? (Hint: no.)
2. What is the meaning of excellence to you? When will you consider yourself a successful person?
3. Do you consider yourself a creative person? If yes, how will find job satisfaction in banking sector, where rules and procedures have to be adhered strictly?
4. What is the difference between a leader and a manager? Does a leader need to be a good manager too?
5. What are the qualities of a good leader? Suppose, you are made a leader of a team unknown to you, there you find somebody who is already a leader there and even better than you. What will you do?

GK questions

Few GK based questions may be asked. At the moment, there is no point in preparing this because GK=infinite and time is short. You’re better off investing your time in banking sector and graduation related topics.

Here are some samples asked in previous interviews:

1. What is the full name of APJ Kalam?
2. Where is Rio de Janeiro? What is it famous for?
3. Name three famous places in Canada.
4. Who is the editor of xyz newspaper?
5. Who won Dronacharya award this year?
6. In which year RTI was implemented?
7. How many lady Chief ministers in India?
8. How many Indians got Nobel Prize?

This list can run long. So, just leave it in the hands of god.
In the next article, we’ll see some Graduation related questions asked in IBPS Bank interviews click me.
For more on IBPS, visit Mrunal.org/IBPS