IBPS Exams 2026: PO, Clerk (CSA) and RRB Pattern, Syllabus, Eligibility, Dates and Preparation

IBPS exams at a glance

The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) is the autonomous body in Mumbai that runs a Common Recruitment Process (CRP) once a year on the mandate of the public sector banks and the Regional Rural Banks. The facts on this page are as per the CRP PO/MT-XVI notification of 1 July 2026, the CRP CSA-XVI notification of 1 August 2026, the CRP RRBs-XV notification of 1 September 2026 and the IBPS tentative calendar of 16 January 2026, all for the vacancies of 2027-28.

Selection process

1. Online registration on ibps.in, one registration for Prelims and Mains. CRP PO/MT-XVI was open from 1 to 26 July 2026 (extended from 21 July by the corrigendum of 21 July 2026), CRP CSA-XVI from 1 to 21 August 2026 and CRP RRBs-XV from 1 to 27 September 2026 (extended from 21 September). A photograph, signature, thumb impression, a handwritten declaration and a live photograph are uploaded.
2. Online Preliminary Examination. A screening stage with three tests (two for RRB), each separately timed. A candidate must clear the cut-off in every test, and an adequate number of candidates per category is shortlisted for Mains. Prelims marks are not counted after that.
3. Online Main Examination. PO Mains has four objective tests and a descriptive paper of essay and comprehension in English. Clerk and RRB Mains are objective only. A candidate needs a minimum score in each test and a minimum total. Mains marks alone are used for the Clerk and RRB Office Assistant merit and for shortlisting PO and RRB officer candidates.
4. Personality Test (PO only). A self-report test, non-qualifying, but appearing is mandatory for the interview; the profile is placed before the interview panel. It may be held in proctored mode or at centres.
5. Common Interview (PO and RRB officers). Conducted by the participating banks and coordinated by the Nodal Bank in each State/UT with IBPS. It carries 100 marks; the minimum is 40% (35% for SC, ST, OBC and PwBD). The final score weighs Mains and Interview 80:20.
6. Local Language Proficiency Test (Clerk, and RRB posts). Held after Mains or provisional allotment and before joining, qualifying in nature. A candidate who studied the language up to Class 10 or above is exempt in CSA; in RRBs, Class 8 or above counts and a selected candidate who lacks it gets six months after joining.
7. Provisional allotment to one participating bank on merit-cum-preference, against the actual vacancies the banks report: January 2027 for PO, March 2027 for Clerk and February–March 2027 for RRB. A reserve list of about 20% of the vacancies may be kept, as the PO notification says. Allotment once made is final, and the CRP's validity ends one year after allotment.

Scores of different sessions are normalised by the equi-percentile method and taken to two decimals. Ties are broken by date of birth, the older candidate first. PO is an all-India cadre and a posting can be anywhere in India. Clerk recruitment is State/UT-wise: a candidate applies for one State/UT, sits at a centre in it and is considered only for its vacancies.

Exam pattern

IBPS PO Prelims (CRP PO/MT-XVI)

IBPS PO Mains (CRP PO/MT-XVI)

The Mains sitting is 3 hours 10 minutes. The descriptive paper may be based on economic and social issues, emerging trends in banking and technology, current events and ethics, and may be evaluated by an automated scoring mechanism. The tests are not necessarily in this sequence.

IBPS Clerk Prelims (CRP CSA-XVI)

IBPS Clerk Mains (CRP CSA-XVI)

The medium in CSA depends on the State/UT applied for: Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Marathi and Konkani in Maharashtra, Tamil in Tamil Nadu, Urdu in Uttar Pradesh, and so on, besides English and Hindi everywhere. The English version prevails in any discrepancy.

IBPS RRB (CRP RRBs-XV)

In every IBPS objective test, 0.25 of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer, in Prelims and Mains alike. A question left blank costs nothing. Every test is separately timed, so time cannot be moved from one test to another.

General Awareness syllabus

The notifications name the test but print no topic list. In PO Mains it is General/Economy/Banking Awareness/Digital/Financial Awareness including RBI circulars (50 questions, 60 marks, 35 minutes). In Clerk Mains it is General/Financial Awareness (40 questions, 50 marks, 20 minutes). In RRB Mains it is General Awareness (40 questions, 40 marks, 15 minutes), and Financial Awareness for Scale-II and III. The list below is GK24's guidance from these test names and from past papers, not an official syllabus.

• Banking awareness: the RBI and its functions, monetary policy and the repo, SDF, MSF, CRR and SLR rates, types of banks and accounts, NPAs and their resolution, Basel norms, priority sector lending, payment systems (UPI, NEFT, RTGS, IMPS), digital banking and the digital rupee, deposit insurance, financial inclusion schemes, banking terms and abbreviations.
• RBI circulars and notifications: new frameworks, revised limits and guidelines issued in the months before the exam. The PO test names them expressly.
• Economy and finance: the Union Budget and the Economic Survey, GDP, inflation and other data releases, fiscal and monetary terms, regulators (SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA), NABARD, SIDBI and other institutions, government schemes with a finance angle, basics of insurance, mutual funds, pension and the stock market.
• Current affairs of the last 4 to 6 months: appointments (RBI, banks, regulators, constitutional offices), agreements and MoUs signed by banks, awards, summits and their venues, sports, reports and indices, mergers and new products, important days and themes, books and obituaries. Banking exams ask recent events far more than SSC does.
• Static GK: headquarters and taglines of banks, capitals and currencies, national parks, dams and rivers, important days, Constitution basics. A smaller share than in SSC exams.
• Digital and financial awareness: fintech terms, digital payment products, cyber security basics, Aadhaar-enabled services, financial literacy concepts.

The PO descriptive paper's essay and comprehension may be based on economic and social issues, emerging trends in banking and technology, current events and ethics, so the same reading serves both the objective test and the essay.

Eligibility and age limit

Nationality

A candidate must be a citizen of India, a subject of Nepal or Bhutan, a Tibetan refugee who came to India before 1 January 1962 to settle permanently, or a person of Indian origin who migrated from Pakistan, Burma, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Zaire, Ethiopia or Vietnam to settle permanently in India. Candidates other than Indian citizens need a certificate of eligibility from the Government of India.

Educational qualification

The percentage is total marks obtained in all subjects across all semesters divided by the aggregate maximum marks; the fraction is ignored, so 59.99% counts as less than 60%. CGPA must be converted to a percentage by the university's norms.

Age limit

Upper age relaxation in all three: 5 years for SC and ST, 3 years for OBC (non-creamy layer) and 10 years for PwBD. For officer posts, ex-servicemen commissioned officers with at least 5 years of military service get 5 years. For Clerk and RRB Office Assistant, ex-servicemen get the period of service plus 3 years (8 years for disabled ex-servicemen of SC/ST) up to 50 years of age, and widows, divorced women and women legally separated who have not remarried can apply up to 35 years (38 for OBC, 40 for SC/ST). The SC/ST/OBC relaxation is cumulative with only one other relaxation. The maximum age applies to General and EWS candidates. EWS candidates need a family income below ₹8 lakh and an Income and Asset Certificate valid for 2026-27.

Important dates

The exact exam dates come from the IBPS tentative calendar of 16 January 2026; the notifications give only the month. IBPS reserves the right to change dates for administrative reasons, court orders or government advisories, and the call letter, downloaded from ibps.in, is the final word on a candidate's date and session. As on 25 September 2026, the PO Mains call letters are out (released on 24 September, downloadable until 4 October 2026) and the Main Information Handout gives the exam date as 4 October 2026; the CSA-XVI Prelims call letters, due in September 2026, had not yet been released.

How to prepare General and Banking Awareness for IBPS

Awareness is the only Mains test with no calculation and the shortest time per question: 35 minutes for 50 questions in PO, 20 minutes for 40 in Clerk, 15 minutes for 40 in RRB. A prepared candidate finishes with minutes to spare and scores where others guess and lose 0.25 per error.

1. Read daily current affairs, every day, for the six months before Mains. GK24 publishes daily current affairs in English and Hindi from official releases, with the banking, RBI and economy items a bank exam needs. Note the RBI circulars and monetary policy decisions separately.
2. Build banking awareness from the GK24 GK notes for banking exams: the RBI, monetary policy tools, types of banks, NPAs, Basel norms, payment systems, financial inclusion schemes and banking terms. These are static and repeat every year.
3. Cover the economy in numbers. Keep a sheet of the latest Budget figures, GDP and inflation prints, policy rates, and the heads and headquarters of regulators and institutions, and update it monthly.
4. Solve the banking previous-year questions on GK24. They show the level of detail asked about schemes, circulars, appointments and reports, and which static facts return every year.
5. Take timed GK24 quizzes: 40 questions in 15 minutes for Clerk and RRB, 50 in 30 minutes for PO. Practise leaving a question you do not know blank, because a blank costs nothing and a wrong answer costs 0.25 of its marks.
6. Use the same reading for the PO essay. Economic and social issues, banking and technology trends and current events are the announced themes of the descriptive paper.

Posts and pay

The participating public sector banks for PO and Clerk are Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, UCO Bank and Union Bank of India. Vacancies are indicative; provisional allotment is made against the actual vacancies the banks report, and the offer of appointment, its terms and joining are the allotted bank's decision.