CURRENT AFFAIRS -- HIGH LEVEL --FOR INDIAN BANK/SYNDICATE BANK PO

1. …. Is the first commercial bank in India that is employing robots to perform tasks like generating customer IDs, updating addresses and mobile numbers, resolving ATM-related queries, etc.

a) YES Bank   b) ICICI Bank   c) Punjab National Bank   d) HDFC Bank

2. Which famous stock exchange’s origin can be traced back to Buttonwood Agreement?

a) London   b) Shanghai   c) New York   d) Luxembourg

3. Which of the following Stock Exchanges deliberately employs a speed bump to slow down trades?

a) Chicago Mercantile Exchange   b) IEX   c) Hong Kong Stock Exchange

d) Colombo Stock Exchange

4. Which of the following is not a component of the Li Keqiang Index Li Keqiang Index?

a) Electricity generation   b) Bank lending   c) Railway cargo volume   d) Housing construction

5. Which of the following indices fell nearly 90 per cent within a span of two years?

a) S & P GSCI Crude Oil Index   b) FAO Food price Index   c) Baltic Freight Index

d) Case Shiller Index

6. Which of the following banks recently conducted the first trade transaction via a block chain platform?

a) Deutsche Bank   b) Barclays   c) Citibank   d) Wells Fargo

7. India ranks ………. on World Economic Freedom Index – 2016.

a) 112nd   b) 89^th   c) 65^th   d) 48th

8. While no woman could reach to the post of Governor of RBI, yet three women had held the post of Dy. Governor. Which of the following is not amongst them?

a) Usha Thorat   b) K. J. Udeshi   c) Shyamla Gopinath   d) Isher Judge Ahluwalia

9. A shelf registration primarily helps a company to -

a) Raise money at short notice   b) De-list itself from a stock exchange

c) Issue preferential shares to its promoters   d) Fend off takeovers

10. Which of the following labels is not owned by Yum Brands?

a) Burger King   b) Pizza Hut   c) Taco Bell   d) KFC

11. Which of the following pairs of companies issued negative yield Euro Bonds in September 2016?

a) Microsoft and Henkel    b) Henkel and Sanofi   c) Sanofi and Microsoft  d) Google and Bayer

12. Residents of ………. Migrated in huge numbers owing to the diminished economic prospects brought about by the Potato Famine.

a) Hungary   b) Israel   c) Ireland   d) Syria

13. What is P2P lending?

a)  Peer-to-peer lending   b) Person-to-person lending   c) Platform-to-platform lending

d) Pro data-to-post data lending

14. Who amongst the following was not the appointed as a member in interest rate setting Monetary Policy Committee in 2016?

a) Chetan Ghate   b) Pami Dua   c) Ravindra H Dholakia   d) Bibek Deberoy

15. Which of the following has been judge as India’s top most brand in 2016?

a) HDFC Bank   b) Bharti Airtel   c) State Bank of India   d) Asian Paints

16. % share of output from horticulture to total Agricultural Output in India during  2013-14 (at 2011-12 prices) is about -

a) 10 per cent   b) 20 per cent   c) 30 per cent   d) 40 per cent

17. Certain institutions of national importance has/have been scrapped by Modi government -

I. Planning Commission   II. National development Council   III. Inter-State Council

IV. Zonal Councils

The correct code is:

a) I and II have been scrapped   b) Only I has been scrapped   c) I, III and IV has been scrapped

d) All have been scrapped

18. Cooperative federalism is promoted by -

a) NITI Aayog   b) Fourteenth Finance Commission   c) Inter-state Council   d) All of the above

19. Which of the following sold the first Euro corporate bond with a negative yield-to-maturity (YTM)?

a) BMW   b) Deutsche Post   c) Siemens   d) Deutsche Bahn

20. ‘Greenmail’ is a type of -

a) Corporate Communication   b) Environment Friendly Legislation   c) Takeover Defence

d) Currency Manipulation

21. India’s first Consumer Price Index-linked Bond was issued by …….. in August 2016.

a) HDFC   b) LIC Housing Finance   c) IIFL   d) Dewan Housing Finance

22. As per Census 2011 data which state in India has the lowest median age?

a) Kerala   b) Tamil Nadu   c) Uttar Pradesh   d) Maharashtra

23. India’s rank in Global Competitiveness Index, 2016-17 is -

a) 39^th   b) 55^th   c) 58^th   d) 66^th

24. Top three fastest movers on the Global Competitiveness Index, 2016-17 are -

a) Switzerland, Canada and New Zealand    b) India, Albania and Jamaica

c) China, Brazil and South Africa   d) China, India and Singapore

25. Which of the following statements is correct about ‘Project Saksham’?

a) It will facilitate implementation of GST   b) It will be developed with the help of Wipro

c) It will facilitate implementation of GST, extension of the Indian Customs single window interface for facilitating trade (SWIFT) and other taxpayer-friendly initiatives under Digital India and ease of doing business of CBEC

d) All of the above

26. In reference to fourth monetary policy review 2016-17, which of the following pairs is not matched correctly?

a) Repo Rate – 6.25%   b) Reverse Repo Rate – 5.75%   c) Statutory Liquidity Ratio – 20.75%

d) Cash Reserves Ratio – 4.75%

27. Which of the following statements is incorrect about fourth monetary policy review statement, 2016-17 issued on October 4, 2016?

a) Repo rate reduced by 25 basis points from 6.5% to 6.25%

b) CPI based inflation rate is likely to remain at 4 per cent by March 2017

c) Growth rate forecast for 2016-17 remains unchanged at 7.6%

d) SLR reduced by 25 basis points from 21% to 20.75%

28. Which Hollywood celebrity recently endorsed India’s leading brand ‘Pan Bahar’ in newspaper ads and on billboards?

a) 007 James Bond fame actor Pierce Brosnan  b) Stage, screen and television star Tom Hardy

c) American film and television actor Christopher Michael Pratt

d) Ben-Hur fame actor Charlton Heston

29. Train travel insurance in India is available at a premium of …….. only with effect from 7^th October, 2016.

a) 92 paise   b) 2 rupees   c) 01 paisa   d) 11 paisa

30. According to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim India’s ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ is basically adopted from a similar successful programme of -

a) Egypt   b) Brazil   c) China   d) Argentina

31. ……. is the first Indian bank to launch a perpetual bond.

a) HDFC Bank   b) IDFC Bank   c) State Bank of India   d) Bank of Baroda

32. ……. Is the first Indian Non-banking company to become a full-fledged member of Visa payment network.

a) PayTM   b) ItzCash   c) PayUMoney   d) Pockets

33. Which of the following banks overtook Wells Fargo as the most valuable bank in USA?

a) Citibank   b) Bank of America-Merrill Lynch   c) HSBC   d) J.P. Morgan

34. Which of the following is, most likely, an example of monopsony?

a) Telecom spectrum Auction   b) Defence Procurement   c) Purchase of Crude Oil

d) Internet Advertising

35. The primary activity of a search fund is -

a) Acquiring a business   b) Searching for white Knights

c) Purchasing a portfolio of internet search firms

d) Investing in companies involved in personnel search

36. Nobel prize in Economics for 2016 has been given to Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmstrom. They won this coveted prize for their contribution to -

a) Imperfect Competition   b) Contract theory

c) Limits of state intervention under market economy   d) New horizons of game theory

37. Consider the following statements and choose the correct code given below –

Statements :

I. Non-Performing Assets are defined as those that have not been serviced for 90 or more days.

II. Restructured loans are those where banks have eased interest rates or the repayment period.

The correct code is:

a) Only Statement I is correct   b) Only Statement II is correct   c) I and II both are correct

d) Neither I nor II is correct

38. Which of the following statements is incorrect about Indian banking sector?

a) Stressed loans in India’s banking sector crossed  9.22 lakh crore in June 2016

b) Public sector banks account for 88 per cent of the bad loans

c) Public sector banks need $ 27 billion in new equity capital by March 2019 to meet tougher global banking rules known as Basel III

d) Government of India infused  35000 crore in banks during April-September 2016.

39. Government of India and the RBI are planning three pronged strategy to solve the problem of bad loans of commercial banks. Which of the following is not on the agenda?

a) Bank-by-bank clean up   b) Assets swaps   c) Establishment of a Bad Bank

d) Closing of the poorly performing banks

40. What is a ‘Bad Bank’?

a) A bank set up to buy the bad loans of the banks with significant non-performing assets at market price.

b) A bank whose gross non-performing assets are more than 15 per cent of gross advances

c) A bank which fails to repay its liabilities

d) A bank whose majority of promoters are declared willful defaulters

Answers with Hints

1. b) ICICI Bank started experimenting with software bots at the beginning of 2016-17. Now, over a million banking trans-actions across 200 business processes are carried out by the technology on a daily basis.

2. c) The Buttonwood Agreement, which took place on May 17, 1792, started the New York Stock & Exchange Board now called the New York Stock Exchange. This agreement was signed by 24 stock brokers outside of 68 Wall Street New York under a button-wood tree.

3. b) By passing orders through 36 mile coil of fiber optic cable, its ‘speed Bump’ creates a delay of 350 microseconds between the moment it matches a buyer with a seller and the moment their transaction becomes visible to other traders. The US SEC in June 2016 accorded permission for IEX (hitherto, a dark pool) to become a public stock exchange.

4. d) The index was created to measure China’s economy using these three indicators. These were preferred by Li Keqiang, the Prime Minister of China.

5. c) The Baltic exchange dry Index touched peak level of 2330 in December 2013 and a record low of 230 in February 2016.

6. b) Two of the bank’s agriculture trade related partners were able to successfully transfer trade documentation via a blockchain platform created wave, a star4up that graduated from the bank’s Techstars accelerator programme.

7. a)   8. d)

9. a) It is a registration of new issue that can be prepared upto three years in advance, so that the issue can be offered quickly as soon as the funds are needed or market conditions are favourable. It is usually available to companies deemed reliable by country’s security regulator such as SEBI.

10. a) Burger King is owned by Brazilian Investment Firm – 3G Capital.

11. b)

12. c) Over one million Irish people migrated during 1845-52 due to Potato Famine.

13. a) P2P lending is a form of crowed-funding used to raise loans which are paid back with interest.

14. d)

15. a) The brand value of India’s top 50 brands has increased by 30 per cent over the last three years. As per the Brandz study conducted by research agency Millward Brown and commissioned by WPP, the total value of the country’s top 50 brands stood at USD 90.5 billion from USD 92.2 billion in 2015. Private sector lender HDFC Bank topped the rankings for the third consecutive year with a brand value of USD 14.4 billion, following a 15 per cent growth over last year. HDFC Bank is followed by Bharti Airtel, SBI and Asian Paints.

16. c)   17. a)   18. d)   19. d)

20. c) The practice of buying enough shares in a company to threaten a takeover, forcing the owners to buy them back at a higher price in order to retain control.

21. d) The AAA – rated company raised  4000 crore with a tenor of three years and a coupon rate based on reference CPI plus 4.18 per cent. The reference rate for this purpose is average inflation for the preceding 12 months period.

22. c) The median age is the age which divides the population into two equal halves, i.e., there are as many people older than the median age as there are people younger than it. A low median age would suggest that a country’s population has more young people than older people.

23. a) Global competitiveness Index is prepared and released every year by World Economic Forum. The rankings are based on country-level data covering 12 categories such as – infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health and primary education, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation.

24. b) India’s rank in Global Competitiveness Index, 2016-17 jumped by 16 points as compared to its rank in 2015-16, while Albania’s and Jamaica’s ranks jumped by 13 and 11 points respectively during the same period.

25. d)

26. d) Cash Reserve Ratio at 4.00% is uncharged since February 9, 2013.

27. b) CPI based inflation rate is likely to remain at 5 per cent by March 2017.

28. a)

29. c) The scheme of rail travel insurance on 1^st September, 2016 at a premium of 92 paisa per ticket. The facility allows a travelling passenger to get an insurance cover of upto 10 lakh on booking a ticket on the IRCTC portal.

30. a) Swachh Bharat Mission is an adoption of Egypt’s Rural Sanitation Project which a well acclaimed sanitation programme around the world.

31. c) A perpetual bond is a fixed income security with no maturity date. One major drawback to these types of bonds is that they are not redeemable. Given this drawback, the major benefit of them is that they pay a steady stream of interest payments forever. A perpetual bond is also known as a ‘consol’ or a ‘perp’. SBI raised $ 300 million at an annual interest rate of 5.5 per cent.

32. b) Just like any bank, the company will now have direct access to the issuance of Visa branded payment instruments, acquire merchant transactions with mVisa, etc.

33. d) Well Fargo’s share plummeted following recent scandal, as a result J.P. Morgan emerged top bank.

34. b) Monopsony is a situation where there is only one buyer and many sellers. Defence procurement falls in this category.

35. a)   36. b)   37. c)   38. d)   39. d)   40. a)