IBPS SO case studies

IBPS SO · Put your knowledge to work in context.

IBPS SO refers to the Specialist Officer stream of the Common Recruitment Process run by the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS), an autonomous body that assists client organisations in selecting personnel at various levels through "proven systems and appropriately designed tools to objectively assess abilities and aptitude in tune with job requirements". The current cycle is labelled CRP-SPL-XVI; IBPS posted a result status of the online preliminary examination for CRP-SPL-XVI on 15 Oct, 2026. The IBPS SO case studies are 5 cases and about 3,833 words.

Five Credit Files and Four Clues: How Far Does the Arrangement Actually Constrain?

The audit team of a district branch has to rearrange five pending credit files - P, Q, R, S and T - on a shelf that has exactly five numbered slots, 1 (leftmost) to 5 (rightmost). The record keeper has left four written clues, and the audit has to be closed within the next thirty minutes: (i) S must occupy slot 5.

813 words, about 4 min 2

A Locker-Rent Notice Going to Print Tomorrow: Grammar, Liability and Channel

The branch manager of a semi-urban branch has drafted the following notice for 1,240 locker-hirers. The draft must go to print tomorrow morning; only the language can still be changed, not the charges or the dates.

816 words, about 4 min 3

A ₹35 Crore Target, Four Officers and a Capacity Wall

A branch carries a FY2024-25 disbursement target of ₹35 crore, to be met from two products only: home loans (HL) and vehicle loans (VL). Q1 closed at HL ₹4.80 crore and VL ₹2.20 crore; Q2 closed at HL ₹5.40 crore and VL ₹2.95 crore.

671 words, about 3 min 4

02:14 on the UPI Middleware Server: Ordering Containment Without Destroying Evidence

At 02:40 a bank's security operations centre notices the following on an internet-facing UPI middleware server carrying about 40 transactions per second: 4,200 failed SSH logins from three source IP addresses between 02:02 and 02:22; one successful login at 02:14 using the shared admin account whose password is known to three engineers; creation at 02:19 of a local account "svc upd8", which was then added to sudoers; 1.2 GB of outbound traffic on port 443 to an IP address outside the bank's egress allow-list. A critical deserialization vulnerability in a public-facing library had a vendor patch released 11 days earlier; the server was not patched.

793 words, about 4 min 5

Five Applicants, Three Conditions and a Screening Clerk Who Marked Everyone Eligible

A regional rural bank advertises five probationary officer vacancies and lays down three conditions, all to be satisfied as on 01.08.2024: (i) a bachelor's degree with at least 60% marks, relaxed to 55% for SC/ST candidates; (ii) age between 21 and 30 years, with a relaxation of 3 years for OBC and 5 years for SC/ST candidates; (iii) at least two years' experience in a bank or financial institution, or a postgraduate degree in management with at least 60%. The screening clerk has marked all five applicants eligible: A - General; born 12.03.1998; B.Com 62%; 18 months as a clerk in a bank; MBA 68%.

740 words, about 4 min