Static Banking & Economy — IBPS PO
Static awareness is the mirror image of current affairs: it never expires. Apex-body headquarters, bank taglines, the year the RBI was set up, the legal maximum of the SLR — these don't move, so you can learn them once and simply retain them. That makes this the most controllable slice of the Mains awareness section — 6–10 marks you can fully secure early, freeing your late-stage energy for the volatile current-affairs bucket. This chapter is the organised static list plus the economy fundamentals IBPS keeps asking.
1. Banking history (the recurring milestones)
- First bank in India: Bank of Hindustan (1770).
- Presidency banks (Bengal, Bombay, Madras) → merged into the Imperial Bank of India (1921) → became the State Bank of India (1955).
- RBI: established 1 April 1935 (on the recommendation of the Hilton Young Commission), nationalised 1 January 1949.
- Bank nationalisation: 14 banks in 1969 and 6 more in 1980 (deposit-size thresholds).
- NABARD (1982), SIDBI (1990), EXIM Bank (1982), NHB (1988) — the development-finance institutions.
2. Regulators & institutions — body, HQ, year
| Institution | Headquarters | Established | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| RBI | Mumbai | 1935 | Central bank; regulates banks, NBFCs, payment systems |
| SBI | Mumbai | 1955 | Largest PSB; taglines "The Banker to Every Indian" |
| SEBI | Mumbai | 1988 (statutory 1992) | Securities market regulator |
| IRDAI | Hyderabad | 1999 | Insurance regulator |
| PFRDA | New Delhi | 2013 (statutory) | Pension regulator (NPS, APY) |
| NABARD | Mumbai | 1982 | Agriculture & rural development apex |
| SIDBI | Lucknow | 1990 | Small industries apex |
| EXIM Bank | Mumbai | 1982 | Export–import finance |
| NHB | New Delhi | 1988 | Housing finance (regulated by RBI since 2019) |
| LIC | Mumbai | 1956 | Life insurance |
| NPCI | Mumbai | 2008 | Runs UPI, IMPS, RuPay, AePS |
| BSE | Mumbai | 1875 | Asia's oldest stock exchange |
| NSE | Mumbai | 1992 | Introduced electronic trading |
3. Public-sector banks — headquarters & taglines (IBPS participants)
| Bank | HQ | Tagline |
|---|---|---|
| Bank of Baroda | Vadodara | India's International Bank |
| Punjab National Bank | New Delhi | The Name You Can Bank Upon |
| Canara Bank | Bengaluru | Together We Can |
| Union Bank of India | Mumbai | Good People to Bank With |
| Bank of India | Mumbai | Relationship Beyond Banking |
| Indian Bank | Chennai | Your Own Bank |
| Central Bank of India | Mumbai | Central to You Since 1911 |
| UCO Bank | Kolkata | Honours Your Trust |
| Bank of Maharashtra | Pune | One Family One Bank |
| Punjab & Sind Bank | New Delhi | Where Service is a Way of Life |
| Indian Overseas Bank | Chennai | Good People to Grow With |
These HQ–tagline pairs are frequent one-mark questions. Learn each bank as a triple: name → HQ city → tagline.
4. The rate structure — the parts that don't change
The values of the policy rates change each MPC, but the framework and legal limits are static and testable:
- Corridor: SDF (floor) < Repo < MSF = Bank Rate (ceiling). MSF = Repo + 0.25%; SDF = Repo − 0.25%.
- CRR: cash reserve kept with the RBI; earns no interest; no statutory floor or ceiling (the 3%–15% band was removed by a 2006 amendment).
- SLR: liquid assets (cash/gold/approved securities) kept by the bank; statutory maximum 40%.
- MPC: 6 members (3 RBI + 3 government), bi-monthly, target CPI 4% ± 2%.
- LAF (Liquidity Adjustment Facility): the RBI's repo/reverse-repo operations that manage day-to-day liquidity.
5. Money supply & deficits (the definitions IBPS asks)
Money supply measures (increasing order of "broadness"): M1 (currency + demand deposits + other deposits with RBI) ⊂ M2 ⊂ M3 (M1 + time deposits — "broad money", the most quoted) ⊂ M4.
Government deficits:
- Fiscal deficit = total expenditure − total receipts (excluding borrowings). The headline number.
- Revenue deficit = revenue expenditure − revenue receipts.
- Primary deficit = fiscal deficit − interest payments.
FRBM Act, 2003 targets fiscal discipline.
6. MSME classification (revised 2020) & priority sector
| Category | Investment | Annual turnover |
|---|---|---|
| Micro | ≤ ₹1 crore | ≤ ₹5 crore |
| Small | ≤ ₹10 crore | ≤ ₹50 crore |
| Medium | ≤ ₹50 crore | ≤ ₹250 crore |
Priority Sector Lending: 40% of ANBC for domestic banks, with 18% to agriculture and defined shares for weaker sections and micro-enterprises.
7. Negotiable instruments, deficacy & the rest
- Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881 governs cheques, bills of exchange and promissory notes.
- Cheque types: bearer, order, crossed, post-dated, stale (older than 3 months), and the truncated-cheque (CTS) system.
- DICGC insures deposits up to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank.
- Basel III sets the minimum CRAR (capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio).
- Financial markets: money market (T-bills, commercial paper, certificate of deposit, call money) vs capital market (shares, bonds; primary/secondary).
8. The protocol
- Learn banks as triples (name → HQ → tagline) and regulators as triples (name → HQ → year).
- Lock the rate framework (SDF<Repo<MSF=Bank Rate; SLR max 40%; CRR no floor/ceiling) separately from the changing values.
- Memorise the definitions — money measures, the three deficits, MSME limits — as one-liners.
- Revise in loops — static facts fade without review; a weekly pass keeps all of it live.
- Front-load this chapter early in prep, since it never changes, and spend late-stage time on current affairs instead.
