RBI Weekly Current Affairs Quiz: 21–27 September 2026

The correct answer is Implementation of five-day banking. The United Forum of Bank Unions and some other unions in public sector banks, supported by Regional Rural Banks, raised two principal demands: a five-day working week for banks and withdrawal of the Performance Linked Incentive scheme. The Finance Ministry says the strikes are now about the single demand of a five-day week, which is still being examined.

Withdrawal of the PLI scheme is the trap. It was one of the two original demands, but the Government met it by keeping the scheme in abeyance, so it is no longer pending. The Old Pension Scheme and the merger of Regional Rural Banks are not part of these strikes. A one-day strike was held on 11 September 2026; a three-day strike is set for 28 to 30 September and an indefinite one from 26 October 2026.

The correct answer is nil. Among the oils covered by this decision, crude sunflower oil is the only one whose Basic Customs Duty was taken all the way down to zero, from the earlier level of 10%. Option A names the new rate of the other two oils in the announcement, crude soybean oil and crude palm oil, each of which came down from 10% to 5%, so it is the right figure attached to the wrong oil. Option D is the rate that applied before the change and not the rate that applies now, and a candidate who reads the question in a hurry can easily settle on the old number. Option C is a rate that does not figure in this decision at all. The safest way to hold the answer is to remember the pattern: one oil to zero, two oils to five, all three starting from ten.

The correct answer is Rs 7,86,000 crore. The Finance Ministry, after consulting the Reserve Bank of India, settled on this gross market borrowing figure for the closing half of FY 2026-27, and the whole sum is to be raised through 23 weekly auctions of dated securities. Within it, Rs 15,000 crore has been kept aside for Sovereign Green Bonds. Option A is wrong because Rs 6,86,000 crore is simply a lower figure than the one announced and matches nothing in the plan. Option C is wrong for the same reason in the other direction; no part of the borrowing calendar carries a figure of Rs 8,86,000 crore. Option D is wrong as well, since the plan does not stretch anywhere near Rs 9,86,000 crore for the half-year. Candidates should note that the full-year borrowing through dated securities is a separate and much bigger number, Rs 15,99,506 crore, which should not be confused with the half-yearly amount asked about here.

The correct answer is Rs 13,906.50 crore, which is roughly USD 1.5 billion. This is the total value of risk the pool is able to write, and it makes the pool the first domestic maritime insurance arrangement of that size in India. Option B, Rs 12,980 crore, is the tempting distractor because that figure does belong to the scheme, but it is the sovereign guarantee the government has extended to stand behind the pool, not the underwriting capacity itself; the two numbers are deliberately different, with the guarantee a little smaller than the capacity. Option A, Rs 9,500 crore, and option D, Rs 20,000 crore, are simply invented amounts and appear nowhere in the description of the pool. Aspirants should remember the pair together: capacity Rs 13,906.50 crore, guarantee Rs 12,980 crore.

The correct answer is second largest shareholder. India is the second largest shareholder of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Union Finance Minister attends the annual meeting of its Board of Governors as India's Governor to the bank in that capacity. Option A is wrong because India is not the biggest shareholder of the institution, even though its stake is large enough to give it a leading voice. Options C and D, third and fifth largest, understate India's standing and would place other members ahead of it. This rank is the fact most often lifted into examination papers whenever the AIIB appears, so it should be revised along with the nature of the bank, which is a multilateral development bank for sustainable infrastructure in Asia.

The correct answer is 2015. In its appeal of 21 September 2026, the Ministry of Finance recalled that the Government, in the interest of bank employees, declared the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of every month as holidays for public sector banks in 2015. The remaining Saturdays are working days and, the Ministry said, an important opportunity for many citizens to use banking services.

The other years are distractors. This fact matters because the unions' pending demand, five-day banking, would turn every Saturday into a holiday. The Government's argument is that customers already lose two Saturdays a month, and that the planned strike from 28 to 30 September, next to a weekend and the half-yearly closing on 30 September, would mean an effective five-day shutdown of banking at a sensitive time of the financial year.

The correct answer is 19.25%. While cutting the duty on crude oils, the government also trimmed the duty on the matching refined oils, but it kept the distance between the two rates at this level rather than letting it shrink. The purpose is stated plainly: a gap of this size keeps domestic refining capacity in use, discourages excessive imports of refined oil and gives Indian refiners a more level playing field, so the value addition takes place within the country. Options A, B and D are plausible only because they look like tariff percentages of the same order, and none of them is the figure named in the announcement. This is the single number from the decision that a paper setter is most likely to ask for, because it carries a policy reason with it rather than being a bare rate.

The correct answer is 23. The gross borrowing of Rs 7,86,000 crore planned for the second half of FY 2026-27 will be completed through 23 weekly auctions of dated securities, with the paper spread over eight maturity buckets ranging from three years to fifty years. Option A, 13, is wrong here, although the number does appear elsewhere in the same announcement: 13 is the count of auction weeks planned for Treasury Bills in the third quarter of the financial year, which is a different instrument and a different calendar altogether. Option B is wrong because no stage of the borrowing plan uses that count of auctions. Option D is wrong as well; the calendar does not run to that many dated-security auctions in the half-year. A careful reader should separate the two counts, remembering that 23 belongs to the dated-security auctions while 13 belongs to the Treasury Bill weeks.

The correct answer is the General Insurance Corporation of India, better known as GIC Re, which has taken charge as Pool Manager and Administrator and handles the pool's day-to-day running, its performance reporting and its operational systems. Option D, New India Assurance, is the strongest distractor: it is a member insurer that actually issued several of the early policies, including the first hull and machinery war policy and the first protection and indemnity policy, but issuing policies is not the same as administering the pool. Option B, the Life Insurance Corporation of India, deals in life insurance and has no role in marine risk. Option C, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, is the sector's regulator and does not administer individual pools. Two other structures matter here as well: a Governing Body supervises the pool and an Underwriting Committee evaluates the risks it accepts.

The correct answer is Doha. The eleventh annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is scheduled in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and the Union Finance Minister travels there on an official visit for it. Option A, Riyadh, is the capital of Saudi Arabia, and although a Saudi counterpart is among those she is to meet, the venue is not in that country. Option B, Abu Dhabi, is in the United Arab Emirates and is not the host city. Option D, Kuwait City, is likewise a different Gulf capital. Aspirants should link the edition of the meeting, the eleventh, with the host city Doha, since a question may keep one and change the other.

The correct answer is 56%. The Staff Welfare Fund is money that public sector banks set aside for the welfare of working and retired staff, covering health expenses, canteen subsidies, sports and cultural activities and educational help. The Finance Ministry listed its 56% increase in August 2024 among the measures taken for bank employees.

The other percentages are distractors. The same list includes other points worth knowing: PSBs recruited about 4,82,800 employees from FY 2014-15 to FY 2025-26, with recruitment doubling in the last three years; as of 1 July 2026, 95.84% of officer posts and 92% of subordinate/award staff posts were filled; and negotiations on the next Bipartite Settlement began early, aiming to finish before the November 2027 deadline. Bipartite settlements are wage agreements between bank managements and unions.

The correct answer is the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, which put out this announcement along with the advisory to the edible oil associations. The reason it and not another ministry speaks here is that the stated purpose of the step is to moderate retail prices of cooking oil and to shield the household budget from imported inflation, which falls squarely within the consumer affairs and food distribution mandate. Option A is tempting because customs duty is a tax matter, and it is a useful reminder that the ministry which announces a measure need not be the one that collects the levy. Option B deals with trade policy and option C with the interests of the oilseed grower, and both of those interests are mentioned in the announcement, but neither ministry issued it.

The correct answer is Rs 50,000 crore. Ways and Means Advances is the facility through which the Reserve Bank of India lets the Centre bridge short-lived mismatches between money received and money paid out, and for the second half of FY 2026-27 the ceiling on this facility has been set at Rs 50,000 crore. Options A, B and C are all wrong because none of them is the ceiling named in the announcement; they are plausible-looking round figures placed around the real one. Aspirants should also keep the other numbers of the plan clearly apart from this one: the gross half-yearly borrowing is Rs 7,86,000 crore, the green bond portion is Rs 15,000 crore, the weekly Treasury Bill issuance in the third quarter is Rs 23,000 crore, and the greenshoe option lets the government retain up to Rs 2,000 crore extra on each security put up for auction.

The correct answer is USD 100 million. Claims up to that level are met from the pool's accumulated reserves together with its reinsurance recoveries, and the government's guarantee is activated only once those reserves have been completely used up. This layered design is the point of the structure: ordinary losses are absorbed commercially, and the sovereign backing is kept as a last resort so that dependence on it stays minimal. Option D, USD 1.5 billion, is the pool's total underwriting capacity rather than the claim threshold, which makes it a plausible trap. Option A, USD 50 million, and option C, USD 500 million, are invented figures. Candidates should link three numbers in memory: the claim threshold met from reserves, the sovereign guarantee behind the pool, and the overall capacity the pool can write.

The correct answer is the Union Finance Minister. At the annual meeting of the AIIB Board of Governors the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs attends as India's Governor to the bank, and on this occasion she also leads a delegation of Ministry of Finance officials. Option A is wrong because the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India heads the central bank and is not the person who occupies India's seat on this board. Option C is wrong because the Commerce and Industry portfolio handles trade and industrial policy rather than representation at this bank. Option D is wrong because NITI Aayog is a policy think tank of the government and has no such representative role. Candidates should also note the bilateral meetings planned with the AIIB President and with counterparts from Jordan, Switzerland, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Nepal.

The correct answer is the Price to Distributors and the Maximum Retail Price, usually written as PTD and MRP. The advisory issued to the edible oil associations and other industry stakeholders asks them to bring both of these down in step with the lower landed cost, and to advise member firms to act without delay, so that the gain from the tariff cut is not retained in the supply chain. Option A lists prices paid to farmers for crops, which are fixed by the government and are not what a refiner or a packer revises. Option C names two price indices, which measure inflation rather than set it, so they cannot be revised by a company at all. Option D refers to prices in the public distribution system, a separate arrangement for subsidised foodgrain.

The correct answer is 1,668 million metric tonnes, the cargo moved through India's ports during 2025-26, and the figure is expected to keep climbing as trade expands. India works 12 major ports and 217 non-major ports, so the total covers both categories together. Options A, B and D, at 950, 1,200 and 2,400 million metric tonnes, are invented volumes and none of them belongs to the port sector's record for that year. Around this figure sit several other numbers worth memorising: a coastline of 11,098 kilometres, an exclusive economic zone of 2.4 million square kilometres, inland waterways of more than 14,500 kilometres, livelihoods for over 30 million people, and an Indian-flag fleet of 1,609 ships with 14.33 million gross tonnage in mid-2026.