What are IBPS PO and IBPS Clerk
IBPS, the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection, runs two separate Common Recruitment Processes (CRP) each year for India’s public sector banks. CRP PO/MT recruits Probationary Officers and Management Trainees, the officer entry point. CRP CSA, still widely called IBPS Clerk, recruits Customer Service Associates, the clerical entry point. Both are conducted by IBPS on behalf of the same pool of participating banks, but they are entirely separate exams with separate notifications, patterns and cut-offs.
For 2026 the cycles are CRP PO/MT-XVI and CRP CSA-XVI, the latter recruiting against indicative vacancies for financial year 2027-28. Clearing either exam does not by itself guarantee a job: candidates are provisionally allotted to one participating bank based on merit-cum-preference and actual vacancies, and the bank itself has the final say. For CSA, the official notification states this plainly: the CRP’s validity “will automatically expire on the day which is one year after the date of Provisional Allotment or until a fresh provisional allotment is made, whichever is earlier.” There is no lifetime certificate, unlike a teacher-eligibility test.
The 11 participating banks under CRP CSA-XVI 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 & Sind Bank, UCO Bank and Union Bank of India (Union Bank’s vacancy cells were marked “NR” throughout the annexure, meaning not reported at notification stage). PO recruitment draws on a similar set of participating banks, though the list is not always identical to the Clerk list.
Who should apply
| IBPS PO | IBPS Clerk (CSA) | |
|---|---|---|
| Age | 20–30 years | 20–28 years, as on 1 August 2026 (born 2 August 1998 to 1 August 2006) |
| SC/ST relaxation | 5 years | 5 years |
| OBC-NCL relaxation | 3 years | 3 years |
| PwBD relaxation | 10 years | 10 years |
| Ex-servicemen | 5 years | Actual defence service + 3 years (8 years for SC/ST DESM), capped at age 50 |
| Qualification | Graduation in any discipline, result declared by the application deadline | Same, plus mandatory computer literacy (a certificate, diploma or degree in computer operations, or Computer/IT studied as a school or college subject) |
| Nationality | Indian citizen, or Nepal/Bhutan subject, or pre-1962 Tibetan refugee, or specified PIO categories | Same |
| Local language | Not required | Must read, write, speak and understand the local language of the State/UT applied for; exempt with a Class 10 mark sheet showing that language was studied |
PO figures above are as commonly published for recent CRP PO/MT cycles; confirm them against the PO/MT-XVI notification before you rely on them.
Clerk vacancies are filled State/UT-wise, so a candidate applies against one specific State or UT and is examined there (subject to reallocation for administrative reasons, without affecting which State’s vacancies they’re considered against). PO recruitment is all-India with no such State-linkage.
Application documents (Clerk/CSA, confirmed from the official notification):
| Document | Format | Dimensions | File size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photograph | Colour, JPG, light/white background, no cap or dark glasses | 4.5cm × 3.5cm (200×230px preferred) | 20KB–50KB |
| Signature | Black ink on white paper | 140×60px preferred | 10KB–20KB |
| Left thumb impression | Black or blue ink on white paper, JPG | 3cm × 3cm (240×240px, 200 DPI) | 20KB–50KB |
| Handwritten declaration | English only, black ink, not in capitals | 10cm × 5cm (800×400px, 200 DPI) | 50KB–100KB |
| Class 10 certificate (where applicable) | PDF, A4 page size | — | Up to 500KB |
Unlike most state exams, IBPS Clerk asks for a thumb impression and a handwritten declaration in addition to the usual photo and signature. Get all four to the exact size with our photo resizer before you start the form. PO’s application documents follow the same IBPS specification sheet in most cycles, but confirm the sizes against the PO/MT-XVI handout before uploading.
Selection process
IBPS Clerk (confirmed): Online Preliminary Exam (qualifying only, sectional cut-offs apply) → Online Main Exam (the only score used for final merit) → Local Language Proficiency Test, qualifying and conducted after Mains but before joining → provisional allotment by merit-cum-preference. There is no interview.
IBPS PO (reported): Online Preliminary Exam (qualifying) → Online Main Exam (objective plus a descriptive paper) → Personality Test and an Interview stage (typically 100 marks) → provisional allotment, with Mains and Interview combined into final merit.
Exam pattern
Prelims (identical structure for both exams, Clerk confirmed from the official notification, PO reported and consistent across sources):
| Section | PO: Q / Marks | Clerk: Q / Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| English Language | 30 / 30 | 30 / 30 | 20 min |
| Quantitative / Numerical Ability | 35 / 30 | 35 / 35 | 20 min |
| Reasoning Ability | 35 / 40 | 35 / 35 | 20 min |
| Total | 100 / 100 | 100 / 100 | 60 min |
Negative marking on both Prelims and Mains is 0.25 mark per wrong answer, none for a blank answer (confirmed for Clerk; reported, and standard IBPS practice, for PO).
Mains, Clerk (confirmed from the CRP CSA-XVI notification):
| Section | Questions | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| General/Financial Awareness | 40 | 50 | 20 min |
| General English | 40 | 40 | 35 min |
| Reasoning Ability | 40 | 60 | 35 min |
| Quantitative Aptitude | 40 | 50 | 35 min |
| Total | 160 | 200 | 125 min |
This is the pattern in the final notification itself. If you’ve seen a 190-question/160-minute or a 155-question/120-minute version elsewhere, those are stale or unconfirmed reproductions, this 160/200/125 structure is what IBPS published.
Mains, PO
The PO Mains structure below reflects recent cycles and is not confirmed against the PO/MT-XVI notification.
| Section | Questions | Marks | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reasoning & Computer Aptitude | 40 | 60 | 45 min |
| General/Economy/Banking Awareness | 50 | 60 | 35 min |
| English Language | 40 | 20 | 35 min |
| Data Analysis & Interpretation | 40 | 60 | 45 min |
| Descriptive (Essay + Comprehension) | 2 | 25 | 30 min |
| Total | 172 | 225 | 190 min |
We will update this table once the PO/MT-XVI notification is published.
Syllabus
Both exams draw on the same broad areas, at slightly different difficulty for PO. IBPS itself does not publish an exhaustive topic list, only these section names, the detail below is the standard preparation scope used across coaching sources.
- English Language: reading comprehension, cloze test, error spotting, sentence correction and rearrangement, para jumbles, vocabulary, grammar
- Quantitative Aptitude / Numerical Ability: simplification, number series, percentage, ratio, profit and loss, interest, time and work, mensuration, data interpretation (tables, bar/line/pie charts, caselets)
- Reasoning Ability: puzzles, seating arrangement, syllogism, coding-decoding, blood relations, direction sense, inequality, data sufficiency
- Computer Aptitude: fundamentals, hardware/software, internet and networking, MS Office, digital banking (a standalone Mains section for PO; folded into Reasoning-related content for Clerk)
- General/Financial/Banking Awareness: current affairs, RBI and monetary policy, banking terminology, government schemes, static GK
- Descriptive (PO Mains only): essay and comprehension writing in English
Salary
| Pay scale (basic) | Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| IBPS PO | ₹48,480–₹85,920 (JMGS-I officer scale, as per the current IBA settlement — confirm the band in the notification) | Bank-specific officer scale under the IBA settlement, not a Central Pay Commission level |
| IBPS Clerk (CSA) | ₹24,050–₹64,480, specifically 24050-1340/3-28070-1650/3-33020-2000/4-41020-2340/7-57400-4400/1-61800-2680/1-64480 (confirmed from the official notification) | Eligible for allowances as per the allotted bank’s rules |
Neither figure is an in-hand salary. DA, HRA and other allowances are set by each bank and vary by posting location, so no reliable universal in-hand number exists for either post.
Competition and vacancies
IBPS Clerk (CSA-XVI), confirmed by summing all 37 State/UT tables in the official notification’s Annexure I:
| Category | Vacancies |
|---|---|
| UR | 4,740 |
| OBC | 2,815 |
| SC | 1,910 |
| ST | 942 |
| EWS | 996 |
| Total | 11,403 |
Uttar Pradesh (1,731) and West Bengal (946) are among the largest State allocations; these are indicative and can still change before final allotment.
IBPS PO (PO/MT-XVI), reported, not verified against an official PO document this session: vacancies were revised upward twice, from an initial 6,715 to 7,365 (20 July notice) to a further-reported 7,565 (27 August notice).
IBPS does not consistently publish official applicant-count totals for either exam, so any specific “X lakh applied” figure circulating online should be treated as unconfirmed rather than an IBPS-published statistic.
What the score is used for
Neither exam produces a portable, reusable score. A PO or Clerk Prelims score only qualifies a candidate for that cycle’s Mains; the Prelims score itself carries no weight in final merit. Mains score (plus Interview, for PO) is used purely for that year’s provisional allotment, and the whole process lapses one year after allotment or on the next fresh allotment, whichever comes first. A candidate who wants another shot at a different bank or a higher vacancy count has to apply again in the next annual CRP cycle, at whatever age and eligibility rules that year’s notification sets. See the IBPS PO and IBPS Clerk pages for the current cycle’s specific dates and vacancy figures.