Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) is an autonomous body which conducts the IBPS Specialist Officer (SO) exam to recruit specialist officers for the vacancies created in different public sector banks.

The exam is conducted to fill vacancies in various departments for job roles like IT Officer, Law Officer, Marketing Officer, Field Officer, HR Management Officer, Sales Officer etc. A Common Written Examination (CWE) is conducted online for Specialist Officers by IBPS once every year for selection of Specialist Officers.

Every year the recruitment of in Banks SO is done through a written competitive exam called Bank SO exam, which is followed by an interview. 

Bank SO (Specialist Officer) exam is conducted Institute of Banking Personnel Selection. IBPS started its operation in the year 1975 as Personnel Selection Services (PSS) in the year 1975.

In 2011 IBPS RRB (Rural Regional Bank) made it necessary for all 19 major public banks to do selection on the basis of the national level eligibility exam known as IBPS SO exam.

Bank SO exam is conducted for recruitment in Public sector banks for the following Cadre posts:

• LAW officer
• IT officer
• Marketing officer
• Chartered Accountant
• Agriculture officer
• Office Assistant

Lists of banks for the postings of selected candidates:

• Allahabad Bank,
• Andhra Bank
• Central Bank of India
• Corporation Bank
• Indian Bank
• Indian Overseas Bank
• Syndicate Bank
• Bank of Baroda
• Oriental Bank of Commerce
• Dena Bank
• Union Bank of India
• Punjab National Bank
• Bank of Maharashtra,
• United Bank of India
• Bank of India
• IDBI Bank
• Canara Bank

Institute of Banking Personal Selection is an autonomous recruiting organization which conducts the IBPS Specialist Officer (SO) exams to recruits Specialist Officers of Scale – I and Scale – II. The IBPS Specialist Officer (SO) Pay Scales is same for all Specialist Officers. There are different pay scales allotted to the fresh recruits as per the position for which they are hired. The salary payment structure of IBPS SO is mentioned below:

IBPS Specialist Officer Salary Scale – I and Scale – II

Officer Junior Management Grade (JMG) Scale I: Rs 14500 600/7 18700 700/2 20100 800/7 – 25700

Officer MMG Scale II: Rs 19400 700/1 20100 800/10 – 28100

Specialist officer Posts for Scale (I, II):

• Finance Executive (Scale II)/ Manager Credit (Scale II)
• T. Officer (Scale-I)
• HR/Personnel Officer (Scale I)
• Marketing Officer (Scale I)
• Agricultural Field Officer (Scale I)
• Rajbhasha Adhikari (Scale I)
• Law Officer (Scale I)
• Law Officer (Scale II)
• Chartered Accountant (Scale II)
• T. Officer (Scale-II)

This exam is same as all the other exams conducted by IBPS. The selection procedure of the exam consists of following steps:

• Online Registration
• Online Examination
• Personal Interview
• Provisional Allotment
• Identity Verification
• Allotment of posts

Written Examination:

The written examination consists of 200 marks for all the posts and the time given to the candidates for the completion of the test will be 120 minutes. Candidates who are only applying for the posts of Rajbhasha Adhikari and Law Officer will have to appear for a General Awareness test. Applicants who are applying for Agricultural Officer, HR Officer and Marketing Officer Posts would have to face a Quantitative Aptitude test.

Personal Interview:

The short-listed candidates from the written examination would be called for personal interview by any participating organization through IBPS. Minimum qualifying marks for the interview is set to be 40% for general category and 35% for the SC/ST/ PWD candidates. Weightage of CWE and interview marks would be 80:20.

Provisional Allotment:

Students who are selected in personal interview will be offered provisional allotment according to the vacancies available. Allotments will be done on the basis of merit.

Identity Verification:

Every student has to carry his/her identity proof at the time of interview. After verification of the Identity of the applicant, final allotment will be offered along with the joining date.

A Bank Specialist Officer is appointed for specialized roles in banks according to their expertise and educational background.

SO Posts in banks includes:

• Information Technology Officer
• Agriculture Officer
• Marketing Officer
• Law Officer
• Rajbhasha Adhikari
• HR/Personnel Officer
• Technical Officer

Here is a list of job Profiles for the Specialist Officers (SO) in Banks.

IT Officer:

The Information Technology Officers are responsible for taking care of all banks' software systems. The IT Officers are responsible to look into database, maintenance of servers and other networking aspects.

Law Officer:

The Law Officers are responsible to handle all Legal activities of the bank.  

Agriculture Officer

An Agricultural officer is responsible to promote loans in rural areas for general and agricultural purposes under various schemes instituted by governmental and financial institutions. These officer need to maintain good relations with farmers to do lead generation, client acquisition, site visit before the loan sanctioning.

Marketing Officer

A marketing officer is responsible for marketing and branding of a bank and its activities either at online or in offline media. They are required to develop marketing campaigns, programs, press releases, public relations activities, advertisements and other special events.

Rajbhasha Adhikari

The Rajbhasha Adhikari is responsible for translating official documents in English to Rajbhasha (Hindi) and other banking activities like circulars, notices etc.

HR Officer

HR Officer in bank is responsible to handle human resource department functions like industrial relations, performance management, training and development, compensation etc.