The journey of IBPS is closely associated with a major event in the economic arena of the country; the Nationalisation of 14 major Banks in 1969, and thereafter, establishment of NIBM as an apex level research and training institute of all public sector Banks, almost at the same time.
IBPS Exams Syllabus
After Nationalisation of the Banks in 1969, the Banks were required to open more and more branches so that more and more people can avail “Banking Services” in the country. Banks started expanding their branch network, but it was not possible without recruitment of new employees. Managing the Critical and Crucial activity of “Selecting Right People for the Right Jobs” was a big task for the banks. At the same time the selection process of the banks, which they were following those days, was not a uniform, standard & scientific selection process. Besides this, some Sr. People in the Banks were of the opinion that the traditional system of selecting employees had no clarity regarding the characteristics to be measured in the selection process and their relevance to subsequent on-the-job performance and career growth of the selectees.
Since Banks were Public Sector Organisations, the “Public Accountability” was also a major guiding principle for them. It was necessary for them to adopt a selection system which should be open to all eligible and qualified applicants. It should be fair, impartial, effective and should select only those candidates who are “most suitable” for the job. But since Branch Expansion was the priority of the banks, they started advertising their vacancies. As expected they were flooded with applications of many well qualified candidates. The personnel departments of the banks were not equipped to handle this voluminous activity. Therefore some of them approached NIBM which designed a new Selection Testing Process for the Banks and launched it in some parts of the country. The new system got spontaneous acceptance from the banking industry. As a result more and more banks voluntarily started using this new service. As the demand increased substantially, it was decided to constitute a small Personnel Selection Service (PSS) unit to handle these projects. A few years later in the year 1984, the same PSS Unit of NIBM was converted into IBPS and Dr. A. S. Deshpande, who was then Professor in-charge of PSS Unit, became its founder Director.
