General Awareness / Banking Awareness
General Awareness / Banking Awareness tests whether you understand the financial system and can place current events in context. Expect banking terminology, RBI functions and monetary policy, government schemes, financial institutions, basic economics, static GK and recent developments. Nainital Bank is a subsidiary of Bank of Baroda headquartered in Nainital, so institution-level awareness is fair ground.
Banking core
- RBI is India’s central bank, established in 1935; it issues currency, acts as banker to the government and lender of last resort, manages monetary policy and foreign exchange.
- Monetary tools: repo is the rate at which RBI lends to banks; reverse repo and the standing deposit facility absorb liquidity; CRR and SLR are reserve requirements; open market operations and bank rate are also used.
- Institutions: SEBI regulates securities, IRDAI insurance, PFRDA pensions, NABARD agriculture and rural credit, SIDBI small industries, EXIM foreign trade.
- Deposit insurance: DICGC covers up to ₹5 lakh per depositor per bank.
Worked example
If the RBI raises the repo rate, banks’ cost of short-term funds rises. They usually pass this on by raising lending rates, which can cool borrowing and demand. The direction is the exam point; do not memorise a stale repo number that changes at every policy review.
Traps
Confusing repo with reverse repo; confusing CRR with SLR; attributing insurance regulation to RBI; and relying on old rates or old scheme names. Link each fact to a function or institution rather than memorising isolated abbreviations.