General Awareness: Banking Core Plus Recent Events
General Awareness in IDBI JAM is dominated by banking and financial awareness, supported by static economy facts and current affairs from roughly the last six to eight months. It is the most scoring section for a prepared candidate because the syllabus is factual and finite.
Must-know banking core
- RBI: established 1935, nationalised 1949. It issues currency (the ₹1 note and coins come from the Government of India), acts as banker to government and lender of last resort, holds foreign exchange reserves, and regulates banks and NBFCs.
- Policy rates: repo is the rate at which RBI lends to banks against government securities; the Standing Deposit Facility and reverse repo absorb liquidity; MSF is an overnight facility priced above repo; bank rate is the penal rate.
- Reserves: CRR is the share of net demand and time liabilities kept as cash with RBI and earns no interest. SLR is held by the bank itself in cash, gold or approved securities and does earn interest.
- Deposit protection: DICGC covers deposits up to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank, aggregated across branches and account types.
Worked example
A customer holds ₹3 lakh in savings and ₹4 lakh in a fixed deposit in the same bank, which then fails. DICGC pays ₹5 lakh, not ₹7 lakh, because the cover applies per depositor per bank, not per account.
Traps
Confusing CRR with SLR; answering "RBI" for questions about SEBI, IRDAI or PFRDA; and ignoring static anchors such as the 1969 nationalisation of 14 banks, priority sector lending at 40% of adjusted net bank credit, and the 90-day NPA norm.