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IBPS PO Bank Mergers & Appointments

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This page covers IBPS PO Bank Mergers & Appointments with complete concept notes, 23 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Bank Mergers & Appointments— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic
Shortcut to remember Union Bank

Union = U + A + C. Think UAC — United Andhra Corporation

Earlier Mergers

- 2017: State Bank of India absorbed its 5 associate banks (SBI of Bikaner & Jaipur, SBI of Hyderabad, SBI of Mysore, SBI of Patiala, SBI of Travancore) + Bharatiya Mahila Bank. Effective April 1, 2017. - 2019: Bank of Baroda absorbed Vijaya Bank + Dena Bank. Effective April 1, 2019. BoB became India's 3rd largest bank after merger. - 2020: Lakshmi Vilas Bank merged with DBS Bank India.

Effective November 27, 2020. This was a private bank merger. RBI ordered this merger. - 2022: HDFC Ltd (parent company) merged with HDFC Bank. Effective July 1, 2023.

HDFC Bank became the 4th largest bank in the world by market cap. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KEY APPOINTMENTS — MOST ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ RBI Governors (recent, most tested): - Shaktikanta Das — 25th RBI Governor (December 2018 to December 2024) - Sanjay Malhotra — 26th RBI Governor (appointed December 11, 2024). He was Revenue Secretary before this appointment

SBI Chairman

- Challa Sreenivasulu Setty became Chairman of SBI in August 2024

NABARD Chairman

- K V Shaji became Chairman of NABARD in 2023

SEBI Chairperson

- Madhabi Puri Buch became the first woman Chairperson of SEBI in March 2022. - Tuhin Kanta Pandey appointed as SEBI Chairman in February 2025. NHB (National Housing Bank): - Sanjay Agarwal — MD & CEO of NHB. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs
Pattern 2 — Date based

'When did the mega merger of 10 banks take effect?' Answer: April 1, 2020

Pattern 3 — Person based

'Who is the current RBI Governor?' Answer: Sanjay Malhotra. Pattern 4 — Rank/Position based: 'After merger, Bank of Baroda became which largest bank?' Answer: 3rd largest. Pattern 5 — First/Only type: 'Who was the first woman SEBI Chairperson?' Answer: Madhabi Puri Buch. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SHORTCUTS & TRICKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Shortcut 1 — COUNT TRICK for 2020 Mega Merger: Formula: 10 banks became 4 banks. So 6 banks disappeared. Remember '10 into 4'

Shortcut 2 — ANCHOR BANK SIZE TRICK

After April 2020 mergers, remember the order of largest PSBs: 1st = SBI, 2nd = PNB (new), 3rd = Bank of Baroda, 4th = Canara Bank, 5th = Union Bank

Memory trick

'SBI Pune Beats Canara United' — S, P, B, C, U

Shortcut 3 — PRIVATE MERGER RULE

Private bank mergers are approved by RBI directly. Government approval is NOT needed. Only public sector bank mergers need Cabinet approval. This is a common trap. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Worked ExampleSolve this step-by-step before moving on

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: Which bank was formed after the merger of Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, and United Bank of India? Step 1 — Read the question carefully. Three banks are given. You need to find which bank survived. Step 2 — Recall the rule: The Anchor Bank survives.

PNB is the Anchor Bank in this merger. Step 3 — Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India were the merged (absorbed) banks. Answer: Punjab National Bank (PNB) is the surviving bank. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: Sanjay Malhotra was appointed as RBI Governor in December 2024. What number Governor is he? Step 1 — Recall Shaktikanta Das was the 25th RBI Governor. Step 2 — Sanjay Malhotra came after him. Step 3 — So Sanjay Malhotra = 25 + 1 = 26th RBI Governor. Answer: 26th RBI Governor. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMON TRAP — #1 MISTAKE STUDENTS MAKE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRAP: Students confuse which bank absorbed which. Many students think Andhra Bank absorbed Union Bank because Andhra Bank sounds bigger historically.

But WRONG — Union Bank of India is the Anchor Bank. Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank were absorbed INTO Union Bank. Always remember: The Anchor Bank is the BIGGER, STRONGER bank. It absorbs the weaker banks.

The Anchor Bank's name SURVIVES.

Key Points to Remember

  • Mega Merger of 10 banks into 4 banks happened on April 1, 2020 — most tested date in IBPS exams.
  • Anchor Bank formula: Anchor Bank = Survivor. Merged banks lose their identity and brand name.
  • PNB absorbed Oriental Bank of Commerce + United Bank of India — remember as POUr into PNB.
  • Canara Bank absorbed Syndicate Bank; Indian Bank absorbed Allahabad Bank in 2020 merger.
  • Union Bank of India absorbed Andhra Bank + Corporation Bank — remember as UAC trick.
  • Bank of Baroda absorbed Vijaya Bank + Dena Bank on April 1, 2019 — BoB became India's 3rd largest bank.
  • SBI absorbed 5 associate banks + Bharatiya Mahila Bank on April 1, 2017.
  • Sanjay Malhotra is the 26th RBI Governor, appointed December 11, 2024, replacing Shaktikanta Das (25th).
  • Shortcut — Largest PSB order after 2020: SBI, PNB, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Union Bank (SBI Pune Beats Canara United).
  • Madhabi Puri Buch was the FIRST woman Chairperson of SEBI, appointed March 2022 — high-frequency 'first' question.

Exam-Specific Tips

  • The mega merger of 10 public sector banks into 4 banks was effective April 1, 2020.
  • Sanjay Malhotra is the 26th Governor of RBI, appointed on December 11, 2024.
  • Shaktikanta Das served as the 25th RBI Governor from December 2018 to December 2024.
  • Lakshmi Vilas Bank merged with DBS Bank India on November 27, 2020 — only private bank emergency merger ordered by RBI.
  • HDFC Ltd merged with HDFC Bank effective July 1, 2023, making HDFC Bank the 4th largest bank in the world by market cap.
  • Madhabi Puri Buch was the first woman to become SEBI Chairperson, appointed March 2022; Tuhin Kanta Pandey replaced her in February 2025.
  • Bank of Baroda became India's 3rd largest public sector bank after absorbing Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank on April 1, 2019.
  • Challa Sreenivasulu Setty became Chairman of SBI in August 2024.
Practice MCQs

Bank Mergers & Appointments — Practice Questions

23graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 23

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Practice 1medium

In December 2022, Shaktikanta Das stepped down as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. Who was appointed as his successor to lead the RBI?

Practice 2medium

In the 2019–2020 mega-bank consolidation exercise, which of the following mergers was NOT part of the RBI-mandated PSB (Public Sector Bank) amalgamation?

Practice 3medium

Which of the following statements regarding the first nationalisation of banks in India is CORRECT?

Practice 4medium

The Imperial Bank of India, which was formed through the merger of three presidency banks, was later renamed to which institution in 1955?

Practice 5medium

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) as established under the RRB Act?

Practice 6medium

In which year were Payment Banks first licensed by the RBI, and what is a key operational characteristic that distinguishes them from commercial banks?

Practice 7medium

In the 2019–2020 mega-bank consolidation of Public Sector Banks (PSBs), which three banks were merged to form Punjab National Bank (PNB)?

Practice 8medium

Which of the following statements about the merger of Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank is correct?

Practice 9medium

In the 2019–2020 PSB consolidation, which three banks merged to form Union Bank of India as the surviving entity?

Practice 10medium

Which of the following correctly identifies the surviving entity in the merger of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank, and Dena Bank announced in the 2019 PSB consolidation?

Practice 11medium

The Imperial Bank of India, which was established in 1921 through the merger of three presidency banks, was later reconstituted as which institution in 1955?

Practice 12medium

In 2019–2020, the Government of India initiated a major consolidation of public sector banks, merging 10 PSBs into 4 mega-banks. Which of the following was NOT one of the resulting mega-banks after this consolidation?

Practice 13hard

Under the Priority Sector Lending (PSL) framework applicable to domestic scheduled commercial banks, what is the minimum percentage of Adjusted Net Bank Credit (ANBC) that must be directed to priority sector?

Practice 14hard

In the context of recent banking sector appointments, which of the following statements regarding the appointment of a new RBI Governor is CORRECT according to the RBI Act, 1934?

Practice 15hard

In the 2019–2020 PSB consolidation exercise, which of the following mergers was NOT part of the RBI-mandated mega-bank formation?

Practice 16hard

In the 2019–2020 PSB (Public Sector Bank) consolidation exercise, which of the following mergers was NOT part of the RBI-mandated mega-bank restructuring?

Practice 17hard

Which of the following statements regarding the appointment of the RBI Governor is INCORRECT under the RBI Act, 1934?

Practice 18hard

Under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, which section governs the Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) requirement for scheduled commercial banks?

Practice 19hard

In 2024, which of the following is NOT a correct statement regarding the appointment of Shaktikanta Das's successor as RBI Governor?

Practice 20hard

Which of the following statements about Priority Sector Lending (PSL) targets for domestic scheduled commercial banks is INCORRECT?

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60-Second Revision — Bank Mergers & Appointments

  • Remember: April 1, 2020 = Mega Merger date. 10 banks became 4. Anchors = PNB, Canara, Union Bank, Indian Bank.
  • Remember: PNB trick = POUr (Punjab + Oriental + United). Union trick = UAC (Union + Andhra + Corporation).
  • Remember: April 1, 2019 = BoB absorbed Vijaya + Dena. April 1, 2017 = SBI absorbed 5 associates + Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
  • Formula: Largest PSB order = SBI > PNB > BoB > Canara > Union Bank. Use 'SBI Pune Beats Canara United'.
  • Trap: Never confuse which bank is Anchor and which is absorbed. Anchor Bank = SURVIVOR. Merged bank = DISAPPEARS.
  • Remember: Sanjay Malhotra = 26th RBI Governor (Dec 2024). Shaktikanta Das = 25th RBI Governor.
  • Remember: Private bank mergers (like LVB-DBS) are approved by RBI alone. Public sector mergers need Cabinet + CCEA approval.
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