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IBPS PO (Probationary Officer / Management Trainee)

Evidence status: ✅ official. Every number below is from the CRP PO/MT-XVI detailed notification (dated 30.06.2026, vacancies of 2027-28), read from the official application portal on 2026-09-29. The hive's recording fetcher is blocked by www.ibps.in, but the application portal is accessible and provides the official notification PDF. Read the current notification before you apply or pay a fee.

IBPS PO recruits probationary officers and management trainees for eleven participating public sector banks. With SBI PO it is the main officer-entry exam in Indian banking. Its prelims modules are the same as those of IBPS Clerk, IBPS RRB and SBI.

At a glance
Conducted by Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS)
Cycle CRP PO/MT-XVI, vacancies of 2027-28
Participating banks 11: Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank, Central Bank of India, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India
Vacancies 6715 indicative (Annexure I). The notification says allotment follows the actual vacancies reported by the banks
Stages Prelims (online, shortlisting only) → Mains (online) → Personality Test (self-report) → Interview → provisional allotment
Age (as on 01.07.2026) 20–30 years (born 02.07.1996–01.07.2006, both dates inclusive)
Application fee Rs 175 (SC/ST/PwBD) · Rs 850 (all others), inclusive of GST, online only
Registration and fee payment 01.07.2026–21.07.2026
Schedule (tentative) Prelims August 2026 → Mains October 2026 → Personality Test November 2026 → interview November/December 2026 → provisional allotment January 2027
Qualification Degree (graduation) in any discipline from a university recognised by the Government of India, as on 21.07.2026
Final merit Mains + interview in the ratio 80:20 (Prelims marks are not counted)

Official sources

Exam pattern

Prelims: 100 questions, 100 marks, 60 minutes, with each test separately timed at 20 minutes. You must clear a cut-off in each of the three tests to be shortlisted for the Mains.

Section Questions Marks Time
English Language 30 30 20 min
Quantitative Aptitude 35 30 20 min
Reasoning Ability 35 40 20 min
Total 100 100 60 min

Mains: 170 objective questions, 200 marks, 160 minutes, each test separately timed. The medium is English and Hindi except English Language, which is English only.

Section Questions Marks Time
Reasoning 40 60 45 min
General / Economy / Banking Awareness / Digital & Financial Awareness (including RBI circulars) 50 60 35 min
English Language 40 20 35 min
Data Analysis & Interpretation 40 60 45 min
Total 170 200 160 min

A separate descriptive paper follows: 2 questions, 25 marks, 30 minutes, in English. It is an essay and a comprehension passage — the notification says it may be broadly based on economic and social issues, emerging trends in banking and technology, current events and ethics. IBPS may evaluate it with an automated scoring mechanism, so write clearly rather than trying to be clever.

Negative marking: one fourth (0.25) of the marks assigned to a question is deducted for each wrong answer, in both Prelims and Mains. A blank answer carries no penalty.

Scoring and shortlisting: scores from different sessions are normalised by the equi-percentile method, to two decimal points. You need a minimum score in each Mains test and a minimum total to reach the Personality Test and interview.

Personality Test: a self-report, non-qualifying, but mandatory — skipping it makes you ineligible for the interview.

Interview: 100 marks, minimum 40% (35% for SC/ST/OBC/PwBD). Final merit combines the Mains and interview scores in the ratio 80:20. Only Mains marks count toward the merit list.

Syllabus

IBPS does not publish a topic-level syllabus for CRP PO/MT. The notification names the tests (English Language, Quantitative Aptitude, Reasoning Ability, Data Analysis & Interpretation, and General/Economy/Banking/Digital & Financial Awareness) and stops there, so anything longer than that comes from coaching material, not from IBPS. The linked shared modules below are the closest free syllabus this repo can honestly offer.

What the notification does fix is the scope of the descriptive paper: economic and social issues, emerging trends in banking and technology, current events, and ethics. Read one essay and one comprehension on those, and one news item a day from a free source.

A practical study map, for orientation only (not an official IBPS list):

  • Quantitative Aptitude: simplification, number series, quadratic equations, arithmetic word problems.
  • Data Analysis & Interpretation: tables, bar, line, pie and caselet sets.
  • Reasoning: puzzles and seating arrangement, syllogism, inequality, blood relations, direction, coding, input-output, data sufficiency.
  • English: reading comprehension, cloze test, error detection, para jumbles, sentence improvement.
  • Awareness (Mains): banking and financial awareness, economy, RBI circulars, static GK and current affairs.

How to prepare (free, in order)

  1. Speed practice for Quant and Reasoning. With sectional timing, clearing each section's cut-off matters as much as the total.
  2. Puzzles and seating arrangement daily. They carry the biggest share of reasoning marks.
  3. Banking awareness from RBI's official publications, RBI circulars and PIB for mains. The Mains awareness paper names RBI circulars explicitly, so this section is not only current affairs.
  4. Write one essay and one comprehension a week against the clock — two questions in 30 minutes, English only. Mains is 200 marks of which only 20 are English Language, but the descriptive paper is the part candidates most often lose by not practising timed writing.
  5. Start Data Analysis & Interpretation early. It is 40 questions and 60 marks in 45 minutes, and it is the one Mains section that punishes untimed practice.

Free resources