Bank PO Interview

Clearing the mains is only the written half of a bank PO selection. SBI PO and IBPS PO both end with a round in which you sit in front of senior bankers and talk, and that round decides the final list. The written scores of the people in the interview room are close; the spoken round is where the order changes.

What the 2026 rounds look like

SBI PO 2026 Phase III has three parts under the SBI notice: a psychometric test on 31 October, then a Group Exercise (20 marks) and Interview (30 marks) from 18 November. IBPS PO (CRP PO/MT-XVI) interviews run in November and December per the IBPS calendar; the interview is out of 100 marks and the final merit list weights mains and interview 80:20. IBPS SO holds its mains on 1 November and interviews after that. IBPS Clerk and SBI Clerk have no interview. The dates on this page update every week; the full list is on the upcoming exam dates page.

What the panel asks

Boards are usually three to five retired or serving bankers. Expect, in roughly this order: tell us about yourself; why banking, and why this bank; your graduation subject (an engineer will be asked why banking, a commerce graduate will be asked accounting); banking awareness (repo rate, NPA, CRR and SLR, UPI, digital lending, the latest RBI policy); current affairs from the last month; your home district and state; a question in or about your regional language; and situational questions such as how you would handle an angry customer or a colleague's mistake. IBPS SO boards add the specialist subject.

The group exercise

SBI's group exercise puts eight to ten candidates around a topic for about fifteen minutes. Marks go to people who speak early with one clear point, bring quiet members in, build on others, and summarise, not to the loudest voice. Our 60 group discussion phrases give you the sentences for each of those moves, and the mock GD practice guide shows how to rehearse alone.

How much English matters

Most boards let you answer in Hindi, and a mixed answer is not penalised. But a probationary officer writes to head office, speaks to corporate customers and sits in branch reviews in English, and the panel knows it. Candidates who can give a structured sixty-second answer in clear English, then switch to Hindi for a nuance, come across as officer material. Your introduction should be rehearsed until it sounds unrehearsed: see Tell me about yourself for freshers and the 50 common interview questions with English answers.

A three-week plan

Week one: write and record your introduction, your "why banking" and your graduation-subject answers; cut each to under a minute. Week two: one banking-awareness topic a day explained aloud in plain English, plus a daily AI group discussion on a current topic. Week three: full mock interviews with follow-up questions, in formal clothes, with the phone recording you. Listen for fillers, for answers that start with "basically", and for the moment you stopped making eye contact with the camera.