IBPS Clerk Salary, Exam Pattern and Bank Clerk Job Guide

The IBPS clerk salary starts at a basic pay of ₹24,050 a month on the clerical scale that runs up to ₹64,480. On top of the basic, a new Customer Service Associate gets DA, HRA, special allowance and other benefits as per the rules of the bank that IBPS allots. This page covers the bank clerk job, who can apply, the IBPS clerk exam pattern, in-hand pay and how a clerk grows over the years.

What is the IBPS clerk job

IBPS stands for Institute of Banking Personnel Selection. Every year it runs a Common Recruitment Process (CRP) for clerks, now called Customer Service Associates (CSA), for the public sector banks that take part. You write one exam, and IBPS allots you to one of these banks in the state you applied for. The latest notification lists 11 participating banks:

• Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Canara Bank
• Central Bank of India, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank
• Punjab National Bank, Punjab and Sind Bank, UCO Bank, Union Bank of India

The IBPS clerk job profile is customer facing. On a normal day you handle cash, open and update accounts, process deposits and withdrawals, issue drafts and cheque books, guide people on loan forms and government schemes, and help with mobile and net banking. In rural branches you will also serve pension and subsidy holders. Hours can stretch at month end and on busy days, but weekends follow bank holiday rules.

State Bank of India does not take part. It hires clerks through its own SBI clerk exam.

IBPS clerk salary: pay scale and starting basic

All public sector banks pay clerks on the same scale set by the industry wide bipartite settlement. That is why the Punjab National Bank clerk salary and the clerk pay in Indian Bank, UCO Bank or Central Bank are nearly the same at the start. Here is the structure:

So what is the salary of IBPS clerk in simple words? The basic is fixed. The rest depends on DA in that quarter and your city. Small differences between banks come from local perks, not from basic pay.

IBPS clerk salary in hand and per month

Your IBPS clerk salary in hand is the gross pay minus deductions. The usual cuts are your NPS contribution, professional tax in some states, income tax if your income crosses the taxable limit, and staff welfare or cooperative society dues. The IBPS clerk salary per month changes with:

• City of posting: a clerk in a metro gets more HRA than one in a block town.
• Quarterly DA: because DA moves four times a year, your gross also moves.
• Bank and perks: small local allowances differ between banks.

I do not give one fixed IBPS clerk inhand salary because the DA rate changes it within months. What I can tell parents is this: a new bank clerk earns more than most private office jobs open to a fresh graduate in a small town, and the job security is far higher. To turn your appointment letter figures into a monthly take home, use this calculator:

Want to understand DA, HRA and NPS properly? Read our salary allowances explained page.

Bank clerk salary per month in different banks

So the SBI bank clerk salary starts a little higher than IBPS banks because of the graduate increments. Cooperative bank clerk salary is set by each bank and is usually lower than public sector banks, so read that bank's own advertisement. For gramin banks see our IBPS RRB page, and for the central bank see RBI Assistant.

IBPS clerk exam eligibility and age limit

You apply for one state or UT only. Check your age with category relaxation here:

The IBPS clerk exam fees in the latest cycle were ₹850 for General, EWS and OBC candidates and ₹175 for SC, ST, PwBD and ex-servicemen. Pay only on ibps.in.

IBPS clerk exam pattern: prelims and mains

The bank clerk exam through IBPS has two online stages, followed by a local language test and document check. There is no interview. Each wrong answer costs one fourth of the marks given to that question.

IBPS clerk prelims exam pattern

The IBPS clerk prelims exam only shortlists you for the mains. Its score is not counted when IBPS makes the final allotment list.

IBPS clerk mains exam pattern

IBPS has trimmed the mains in recent cycles, so the IBPS clerk mains exam time and section split may change again. Always match this table with the notification of your cycle. Final allotment uses mains marks only, along with your state, category and bank preference.

IBPS clerk exam syllabus and preparation

• English: reading passages, fillers, error detection, sentence rearrangement, cloze test.
• Numerical Ability and Quant: simplification, approximation, number series, quadratic equations, arithmetic word problems and data interpretation sets.
• Reasoning: puzzles, seating arrangement, syllogism, inequality, coding decoding, blood relations, direction sense.
• General and Financial Awareness: banking terms, RBI functions, government schemes, budget basics and current affairs of recent months.

For IBPS clerk exam preparation, most students I guide need 4 to 6 months of steady work. Spend the first month on speed maths and reasoning basics. From the second month, take a prelims mock every other day and spend more time on reviewing it than on writing it. In the last two months, add mains level DI, longer puzzles and 30 minutes of banking news daily. If English is weak, read one editorial daily and note ten new words. The same preparation fits SBI clerk and the gramin bank exams, which raises your chances.

IBPS clerk salary after 5 and 10 years, and promotions

Without any promotion, five yearly increments move the basic from ₹24,050 to about ₹31,370, and ten increments to about ₹41,020. DA and HRA rise along with it. This is the IBPS clerk salary after 5 years and after 10 years on the scale alone.

The real growth comes from promotion to officer. Public sector banks hold internal promotion tests and interviews for clerks to move to Junior Management Grade Scale I, the same grade where an IBPS PO starts at ₹48,480 basic. From there you can rise to Manager, Senior Manager and beyond. Passing the JAIIB and CAIIB banking exams helps with both increments and promotion. A clerk who prefers to stay in the clerical cadre can also move to special posts like single window operator or head cashier, which carry extra allowances as per bank rules.

How to apply and the official website

The IBPS clerk notification, online form, call letters and IBPS clerk prelims exam score card are released only on ibps.in, under the CRP Clerks section. Read the full notification, check your state's language rule, keep scanned photo, signature, thumb impression and handwritten declaration ready, and submit before the last date. Exam dates and the IBPS clerk exam time for each shift are printed on the call letter. For more options see all bank clerk jobs and officer jobs and other jobs after graduation.