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IDBI Executive/Assistant Manager Revision Quiz, Score 25/30!

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Question 1

What is the theme of National Maritime Day 2019?

Question 2

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) launched a new mass media campaign ‘Heart Attack Rewind’ with a target to eliminate the industrially produced trans-fat in the food supply in India by the year ____.

Question 3

Which of the following countries has won the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup for the year 2019?

Question 4

Who was sworn in as the 48th Chief Justice of India?

Question 5

As per the United Nations (UN) World Happiness Report which country topped the list of happiest country in the world for the second consecutive year?

Question 6

Direction: Study the following bar & Tabular data carefully & answer the questions given below that:

The following bar graph shows the percentage distribution of smartphone users over 4 years for different age groups

What is the average number of smartphone users aged below 18 from 2013-2015? (approximate value)

Question 7

Direction: Study the following bar & Tabular data carefully & answer the questions given below that:

The following bar graph shows the percentage distribution of smartphone users over 4 years for different age groups

What is the total number of smartphone users aged below 25 from 2013-2016?

Question 8

Direction: Study the following bar & Tabular data carefully & answer the questions given below that:
The following bar graph shows the percentage distribution of smartphone users over 4 years for different age groups

Which year showed the highest percentage growth in overall smartphone users?

Question 9

Direction: Study the following bar & Tabular data carefully & answer the questions given below that:
The following bar graph shows the percentage distribution of smartphone users over 4 years for different age groups

What is the difference between number of smartphone users aged above 25 in 2015 and 2016?

Question 10

Direction: Study the following bar & Tabular data carefully & answer the questions given below that:
The following bar graph shows the percentage distribution of smartphone users over 4 years for different age groups

What is the difference between number of smartphone users aged between 18 and 25 in 2014 and 2016?

Question 11

Direction: Study the following information and answer the questions.

P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W live on eight different floors of a building but not necessarily in the same order. The lowermost floor is numbered 1 and the topmost floor of the building is numbered 8. Each of the people likes different Cities viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Goa, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Indore but not necessarily in the same order.

Only one person lives between U and the one who likes Bangalore. The one who likes Delhi lives on an even-numbered floor but not on the topmost floor. Only two persons live between U and the one who likes Delhi. Neither T or R lives on the first floor. Only one person lives between R and the one who likes Jaipur. P lives just above U. Only two persons live between T and P. The one who likes Bangalore does not live on floor number one. Q lives on an even-numbered floor and just above R. The one who likes Goa lives on an even-numbered floor and lives just above the person who likes Indore. R likes neither Bangalore nor Indore. Only two persons live between the one who likes Pune and the one who likes Mumbai. S does not like Kolkata. The one who likes Pune does not live on an odd-numbered floor. W lives just below the one who likes Indore.
Who among the following lives on the first floor?

Question 12

Direction: Study the following information and answer the questions.

P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W live on eight different floors of a building but not necessarily in the same order. The lowermost floor is numbered 1 and the topmost floor of the building is numbered 8. Each of the people likes different Cities viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Goa, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Indore but not necessarily in the same order.

Only one person lives between U and the one who likes Bangalore. The one who likes Delhi lives on an even-numbered floor but not on the topmost floor. Only two persons live between U and the one who likes Delhi. Neither T or R lives on the first floor. Only one person lives between R and the one who likes Jaipur. P lives just above U. Only two persons live between T and P. The one who likes Bangalore does not live on floor number one. Q lives on an even-numbered floor and just above R. The one who likes Goa lives on an even-numbered floor and lives just above the person who likes Indore. R likes neither Bangalore nor Indore. Only two persons live between the one who likes Pune and the one who likes Mumbai. S does not like Kolkata. The one who likes Pune does not live on an odd-numbered floor. W lives just below the one who likes Indore.
Who likes Indore?

Question 13

Direction: Study the following information and answer the questions.

P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W live on eight different floors of a building but not necessarily in the same order. The lowermost floor is numbered 1 and the topmost floor of the building is numbered 8. Each of the people likes different Cities viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Goa, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Indore but not necessarily in the same order.

Only one person lives between U and the one who likes Bangalore. The one who likes Delhi lives on an even-numbered floor but not on the topmost floor. Only two persons live between U and the one who likes Delhi. Neither T or R lives on the first floor. Only one person lives between R and the one who likes Jaipur. P lives just above U. Only two persons live between T and P. The one who likes Bangalore does not live on floor number one. Q lives on an even-numbered floor and just above R. The one who likes Goa lives on an even-numbered floor and lives just above the person who likes Indore. R likes neither Bangalore nor Indore. Only two persons live between the one who likes Pune and the one who likes Mumbai. S does not like Kolkata. The one who likes Pune does not live on an odd-numbered floor. W lives just below the one who likes Indore.
How many persons live between the one who likes Kolkata and W?

Question 14

Direction: Study the following information and answer the questions.

P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W live on eight different floors of a building but not necessarily in the same order. The lowermost floor is numbered 1 and the topmost floor of the building is numbered 8. Each of the people likes different Cities viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Goa, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Indore but not necessarily in the same order.

Only one person lives between U and the one who likes Bangalore. The one who likes Delhi lives on an even-numbered floor but not on the topmost floor. Only two persons live between U and the one who likes Delhi. Neither T or R lives on the first floor. Only one person lives between R and the one who likes Jaipur. P lives just above U. Only two persons live between T and P. The one who likes Bangalore does not live on floor number one. Q lives on an even-numbered floor and just above R. The one who likes Goa lives on an even-numbered floor and lives just above the person who likes Indore. R likes neither Bangalore nor Indore. Only two persons live between the one who likes Pune and the one who likes Mumbai. S does not like Kolkata. The one who likes Pune does not live on an odd-numbered floor. W lives just below the one who likes Indore.
Who among the following lives on the topmost floor?

Question 15

Direction: Study the following information and answer the questions.

P, Q, R, S, T, U, V and W live on eight different floors of a building but not necessarily in the same order. The lowermost floor is numbered 1 and the topmost floor of the building is numbered 8. Each of the people likes different Cities viz, Mumbai, Delhi, Jaipur, Goa, Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Indore but not necessarily in the same order.

Only one person lives between U and the one who likes Bangalore. The one who likes Delhi lives on an even-numbered floor but not on the topmost floor. Only two persons live between U and the one who likes Delhi. Neither T or R lives on the first floor. Only one person lives between R and the one who likes Jaipur. P lives just above U. Only two persons live between T and P. The one who likes Bangalore does not live on floor number one. Q lives on an even-numbered floor and just above R. The one who likes Goa lives on an even-numbered floor and lives just above the person who likes Indore. R likes neither Bangalore nor Indore. Only two persons live between the one who likes Pune and the one who likes Mumbai. S does not like Kolkata. The one who likes Pune does not live on an odd-numbered floor. W lives just below the one who likes Indore.
Which of the following statements is true?

Question 16

Which among the following films won the Oscar Award for the ‘best picture’ at the 91st Academy Awards?

Question 17

Which of the following countries has signed an agreement to join US-led alliance NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to become the 30th member?

Question 18

In order to control the menace of piracy what provisions has been introduced in the Cinematograph Act?

Question 19

Which of the following Indian Cricketer has been suspended by the International Cricket Council (ICC)from bowling in International Cricket?

Question 20

Which of the following cities hosted the 2nd National Conference of Micro Missions of National Police Mission?

Question 21

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

In the years since the crash of 2007-08, policymakers have concentrated on making finance safer. Regulators have stuffed the banks with capital and turned compliance from a back-office job into a corner-office one. Away from the regulatory spotlight, another revolution is underway—one that promises not just to make finance more secure for taxpayers, but also better for another neglected constituency: its customers. The magical combination of geeks in T-shirts and venture capital that has disrupted other industries has put financial services in its sights. From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of the industry—and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates is worth $4.7 trillion. Like other disrupters from Silicon Valley, “fintech” firms are growing fast. They attracted $12 billion of investment in 2014, up from $4 billion the year before. Many of these businesses are long past the experimental phase.
The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks. The upstarts are still tiny: Lending Club has arranged $9 billion in loans through its marketplace, small change compared with $885 billion of total credit-card debt in America. They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn. No fintech product comes close to matching the convenience and security of a current account at a bank. And banks will gain from many of the innovations. Square, for instance, is a system that makes it easier for small businesses to take card payments; it will boost banks’ transaction volumes. Nonetheless, the fintech revolution will reshape finance—and improve it—in three fundamental ways.
First, the fintech disrupters will cut costs and improve the quality of financial services. They are unburdened by regulators, legacy IT systems, branch networks—or the need to protect existing businesses. Lending Club’s ongoing expenses as a share of its outstanding loan balance is about 2%; the equivalent for conventional lenders is 5-7%. That means it can offer better deals to the borrowers and lenders who congregate on its platform. Half of the loan applications Funding Circle gets from small businesses arrive outside normal business hours. Transfer Wise takes a machete to the hefty fees that banks levy to send money across borders.
Second, the insurgents have clever new ways of assessing risk. The likes of Kabbage and On Deck hoover up information, on everything from social-media reviews to companies’ usage of logistics firms, to assess how well small businesses are doing. Avant uses machine learning to underwrite consumers whose credit scores were damaged during the financial crisis. Kick starter uses the wisdom of crowds to finance startups. This kind of data-driven lending has clear advantages over decisions based on a single credit score or meetings between banker and client. Humans are more prejudiced than algorithms: Italian banks charge female owners of small businesses more than male owners, even though the women have lower failure rates. The cost of relationship lending encourages bankers to chase big customers rather than small ones. For young businesses and borrowers on the fringes of the banking system, risk assessment that scours the online world for information is better than a loan officer in a branch.
Third, the fintech newcomers will create a more diverse, and hence stable, credit landscape. The business of internet-based firms is less geographically concentrated than that of bricks-and-mortar lenders: small American banks already use lending platforms to diversify their own portfolios. More important, the fintech firms avoid the two basic risks inherent in banking: mismatched maturities and leverage. Banks take in short-term liabilities such as deposits and turn them into long-term assets such as mortgages. Fintech lenders like Lending Club, Prosper and Zopa simply match borrowers and savers directly. Banks borrow heavily to fund lending; the new platforms do not. Instead, a lender commits its money until the final payment is due and it bears the risk of default.
Traditional banks would take deposits and hold only safe, liquid assets, while fintech platforms matched borrowers and savers. Economies would operate with much less leverage than today. But long before then, upstarts will force banks to accept lower margins. Conventional lenders will charge more for the services that the newcomers cannot easily replicate, including the payments infrastructure and the provision of an insured current account. The bigger effect from the fintech revolution will be to force flabby incumbents to cut costs and improve the quality of their service. That will change finance as profoundly as any regulator has.
Source: https://www.economist.com
In paragraph 2, which of the following is opposite in meaning to the phrase, ‘They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn”?

Question 22

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

In the years since the crash of 2007-08, policymakers have concentrated on making finance safer. Regulators have stuffed the banks with capital and turned compliance from a back-office job into a corner-office one. Away from the regulatory spotlight, another revolution is underway—one that promises not just to make finance more secure for taxpayers, but also better for another neglected constituency: its customers. The magical combination of geeks in T-shirts and venture capital that has disrupted other industries has put financial services in its sights. From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of the industry—and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates is worth $4.7 trillion. Like other disrupters from Silicon Valley, “fintech” firms are growing fast. They attracted $12 billion of investment in 2014, up from $4 billion the year before. Many of these businesses are long past the experimental phase.
The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks. The upstarts are still tiny: Lending Club has arranged $9 billion in loans through its marketplace, small change compared with $885 billion of total credit-card debt in America. They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn. No fintech product comes close to matching the convenience and security of a current account at a bank. And banks will gain from many of the innovations. Square, for instance, is a system that makes it easier for small businesses to take card payments; it will boost banks’ transaction volumes. Nonetheless, the fintech revolution will reshape finance—and improve it—in three fundamental ways.
First, the fintech disrupters will cut costs and improve the quality of financial services. They are unburdened by regulators, legacy IT systems, branch networks—or the need to protect existing businesses. Lending Club’s ongoing expenses as a share of its outstanding loan balance is about 2%; the equivalent for conventional lenders is 5-7%. That means it can offer better deals to the borrowers and lenders who congregate on its platform. Half of the loan applications Funding Circle gets from small businesses arrive outside normal business hours. Transfer Wise takes a machete to the hefty fees that banks levy to send money across borders.
Second, the insurgents have clever new ways of assessing risk. The likes of Kabbage and On Deck hoover up information, on everything from social-media reviews to companies’ usage of logistics firms, to assess how well small businesses are doing. Avant uses machine learning to underwrite consumers whose credit scores were damaged during the financial crisis. Kick starter uses the wisdom of crowds to finance startups. This kind of data-driven lending has clear advantages over decisions based on a single credit score or meetings between banker and client. Humans are more prejudiced than algorithms: Italian banks charge female owners of small businesses more than male owners, even though the women have lower failure rates. The cost of relationship lending encourages bankers to chase big customers rather than small ones. For young businesses and borrowers on the fringes of the banking system, risk assessment that scours the online world for information is better than a loan officer in a branch.
Third, the fintech newcomers will create a more diverse, and hence stable, credit landscape. The business of internet-based firms is less geographically concentrated than that of bricks-and-mortar lenders: small American banks already use lending platforms to diversify their own portfolios. More important, the fintech firms avoid the two basic risks inherent in banking: mismatched maturities and leverage. Banks take in short-term liabilities such as deposits and turn them into long-term assets such as mortgages. Fintech lenders like Lending Club, Prosper and Zopa simply match borrowers and savers directly. Banks borrow heavily to fund lending; the new platforms do not. Instead, a lender commits its money until the final payment is due and it bears the risk of default.
Traditional banks would take deposits and hold only safe, liquid assets, while fintech platforms matched borrowers and savers. Economies would operate with much less leverage than today. But long before then, upstarts will force banks to accept lower margins. Conventional lenders will charge more for the services that the newcomers cannot easily replicate, including the payments infrastructure and the provision of an insured current account. The bigger effect from the fintech revolution will be to force flabby incumbents to cut costs and improve the quality of their service. That will change finance as profoundly as any regulator has.
Source: https://www.economist.com
In paragraph 1, what could be the rationale of author behind mentioning that “regulators have turned compliance from a back – office job into a corner – office one”?

Question 23

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

In the years since the crash of 2007-08, policymakers have concentrated on making finance safer. Regulators have stuffed the banks with capital and turned compliance from a back-office job into a corner-office one. Away from the regulatory spotlight, another revolution is underway—one that promises not just to make finance more secure for taxpayers, but also better for another neglected constituency: its customers. The magical combination of geeks in T-shirts and venture capital that has disrupted other industries has put financial services in its sights. From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of the industry—and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates is worth $4.7 trillion. Like other disrupters from Silicon Valley, “fintech” firms are growing fast. They attracted $12 billion of investment in 2014, up from $4 billion the year before. Many of these businesses are long past the experimental phase.
The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks. The upstarts are still tiny: Lending Club has arranged $9 billion in loans through its marketplace, small change compared with $885 billion of total credit-card debt in America. They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn. No fintech product comes close to matching the convenience and security of a current account at a bank. And banks will gain from many of the innovations. Square, for instance, is a system that makes it easier for small businesses to take card payments; it will boost banks’ transaction volumes. Nonetheless, the fintech revolution will reshape finance—and improve it—in three fundamental ways.
First, the fintech disrupters will cut costs and improve the quality of financial services. They are unburdened by regulators, legacy IT systems, branch networks—or the need to protect existing businesses. Lending Club’s ongoing expenses as a share of its outstanding loan balance is about 2%; the equivalent for conventional lenders is 5-7%. That means it can offer better deals to the borrowers and lenders who congregate on its platform. Half of the loan applications Funding Circle gets from small businesses arrive outside normal business hours. Transfer Wise takes a machete to the hefty fees that banks levy to send money across borders.
Second, the insurgents have clever new ways of assessing risk. The likes of Kabbage and On Deck hoover up information, on everything from social-media reviews to companies’ usage of logistics firms, to assess how well small businesses are doing. Avant uses machine learning to underwrite consumers whose credit scores were damaged during the financial crisis. Kick starter uses the wisdom of crowds to finance startups. This kind of data-driven lending has clear advantages over decisions based on a single credit score or meetings between banker and client. Humans are more prejudiced than algorithms: Italian banks charge female owners of small businesses more than male owners, even though the women have lower failure rates. The cost of relationship lending encourages bankers to chase big customers rather than small ones. For young businesses and borrowers on the fringes of the banking system, risk assessment that scours the online world for information is better than a loan officer in a branch.
Third, the fintech newcomers will create a more diverse, and hence stable, credit landscape. The business of internet-based firms is less geographically concentrated than that of bricks-and-mortar lenders: small American banks already use lending platforms to diversify their own portfolios. More important, the fintech firms avoid the two basic risks inherent in banking: mismatched maturities and leverage. Banks take in short-term liabilities such as deposits and turn them into long-term assets such as mortgages. Fintech lenders like Lending Club, Prosper and Zopa simply match borrowers and savers directly. Banks borrow heavily to fund lending; the new platforms do not. Instead, a lender commits its money until the final payment is due and it bears the risk of default.
Traditional banks would take deposits and hold only safe, liquid assets, while fintech platforms matched borrowers and savers. Economies would operate with much less leverage than today. But long before then, upstarts will force banks to accept lower margins. Conventional lenders will charge more for the services that the newcomers cannot easily replicate, including the payments infrastructure and the provision of an insured current account. The bigger effect from the fintech revolution will be to force flabby incumbents to cut costs and improve the quality of their service. That will change finance as profoundly as any regulator has.
Source: https://www.economist.com
In paragraph 4, which one of the following weakens the assertions made by the author?
I) Data-driven lending firms can get a comprehensive view of prospective customers – based on their friends, their employer and even their exercise habits – and can ultimately expand the availability of credit.
II) Data and computerized algorithms may use the correlated information to build an in-depth profile of a particular customer and predict a lot of irrelevant stuff to use for lending.
III) Big data and algorithm-driven consumer lending find its greatest use in marketing financial products, rather than underwriting them.
IV) Online behaviour of a customer enables a firm to analyze loyalty, impulsiveness, organizational conduct; this behavioural data helps in the expansion of credit.

Question 24

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

In the years since the crash of 2007-08, policymakers have concentrated on making finance safer. Regulators have stuffed the banks with capital and turned compliance from a back-office job into a corner-office one. Away from the regulatory spotlight, another revolution is underway—one that promises not just to make finance more secure for taxpayers, but also better for another neglected constituency: its customers. The magical combination of geeks in T-shirts and venture capital that has disrupted other industries has put financial services in its sights. From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of the industry—and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates is worth $4.7 trillion. Like other disrupters from Silicon Valley, “fintech” firms are growing fast. They attracted $12 billion of investment in 2014, up from $4 billion the year before. Many of these businesses are long past the experimental phase.
The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks. The upstarts are still tiny: Lending Club has arranged $9 billion in loans through its marketplace, small change compared with $885 billion of total credit-card debt in America. They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn. No fintech product comes close to matching the convenience and security of a current account at a bank. And banks will gain from many of the innovations. Square, for instance, is a system that makes it easier for small businesses to take card payments; it will boost banks’ transaction volumes. Nonetheless, the fintech revolution will reshape finance—and improve it—in three fundamental ways.
First, the fintech disrupters will cut costs and improve the quality of financial services. They are unburdened by regulators, legacy IT systems, branch networks—or the need to protect existing businesses. Lending Club’s ongoing expenses as a share of its outstanding loan balance is about 2%; the equivalent for conventional lenders is 5-7%. That means it can offer better deals to the borrowers and lenders who congregate on its platform. Half of the loan applications Funding Circle gets from small businesses arrive outside normal business hours. Transfer Wise takes a machete to the hefty fees that banks levy to send money across borders.
Second, the insurgents have clever new ways of assessing risk. The likes of Kabbage and On Deck hoover up information, on everything from social-media reviews to companies’ usage of logistics firms, to assess how well small businesses are doing. Avant uses machine learning to underwrite consumers whose credit scores were damaged during the financial crisis. Kick starter uses the wisdom of crowds to finance startups. This kind of data-driven lending has clear advantages over decisions based on a single credit score or meetings between banker and client. Humans are more prejudiced than algorithms: Italian banks charge female owners of small businesses more than male owners, even though the women have lower failure rates. The cost of relationship lending encourages bankers to chase big customers rather than small ones. For young businesses and borrowers on the fringes of the banking system, risk assessment that scours the online world for information is better than a loan officer in a branch.
Third, the fintech newcomers will create a more diverse, and hence stable, credit landscape. The business of internet-based firms is less geographically concentrated than that of bricks-and-mortar lenders: small American banks already use lending platforms to diversify their own portfolios. More important, the fintech firms avoid the two basic risks inherent in banking: mismatched maturities and leverage. Banks take in short-term liabilities such as deposits and turn them into long-term assets such as mortgages. Fintech lenders like Lending Club, Prosper and Zopa simply match borrowers and savers directly. Banks borrow heavily to fund lending; the new platforms do not. Instead, a lender commits its money until the final payment is due and it bears the risk of default.
Traditional banks would take deposits and hold only safe, liquid assets, while fintech platforms matched borrowers and savers. Economies would operate with much less leverage than today. But long before then, upstarts will force banks to accept lower margins. Conventional lenders will charge more for the services that the newcomers cannot easily replicate, including the payments infrastructure and the provision of an insured current account. The bigger effect from the fintech revolution will be to force flabby incumbents to cut costs and improve the quality of their service. That will change finance as profoundly as any regulator has.
Source: https://www.economist.com
Which of the following is false with respect to the passage?
A) Since the Fintech firms are not pestered by regulators, they can charge lower fees to borrowers than banks.
B) Fintech firms are coming up with never – before – seen innovations and in a way these ideas can help banks to improve their basket of products.
C) In order to earn more from their flagship products and services, banks could increase the fees they levy to them.
D) Fintech firms are not bound by a geographical area and even banks are exploiting this advantage associating with these firms to expand their reach

Question 25

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

In the years since the crash of 2007-08, policymakers have concentrated on making finance safer. Regulators have stuffed the banks with capital and turned compliance from a back-office job into a corner-office one. Away from the regulatory spotlight, another revolution is underway—one that promises not just to make finance more secure for taxpayers, but also better for another neglected constituency: its customers. The magical combination of geeks in T-shirts and venture capital that has disrupted other industries has put financial services in its sights. From payments to wealth management, from peer-to-peer lending to crowdfunding, a new generation of startups is taking aim at the heart of the industry—and a pot of revenues that Goldman Sachs estimates is worth $4.7 trillion. Like other disrupters from Silicon Valley, “fintech” firms are growing fast. They attracted $12 billion of investment in 2014, up from $4 billion the year before. Many of these businesses are long past the experimental phase.
The fintech firms are not about to kill off traditional banks. The upstarts are still tiny: Lending Club has arranged $9 billion in loans through its marketplace, small change compared with $885 billion of total credit-card debt in America. They have yet to be properly tested in a downturn. No fintech product comes close to matching the convenience and security of a current account at a bank. And banks will gain from many of the innovations. Square, for instance, is a system that makes it easier for small businesses to take card payments; it will boost banks’ transaction volumes. Nonetheless, the fintech revolution will reshape finance—and improve it—in three fundamental ways.
First, the fintech disrupters will cut costs and improve the quality of financial services. They are unburdened by regulators, legacy IT systems, branch networks—or the need to protect existing businesses. Lending Club’s ongoing expenses as a share of its outstanding loan balance is about 2%; the equivalent for conventional lenders is 5-7%. That means it can offer better deals to the borrowers and lenders who congregate on its platform. Half of the loan applications Funding Circle gets from small businesses arrive outside normal business hours. Transfer Wise takes a machete to the hefty fees that banks levy to send money across borders.
Second, the insurgents have clever new ways of assessing risk. The likes of Kabbage and On Deck hoover up information, on everything from social-media reviews to companies’ usage of logistics firms, to assess how well small businesses are doing. Avant uses machine learning to underwrite consumers whose credit scores were damaged during the financial crisis. Kick starter uses the wisdom of crowds to finance startups. This kind of data-driven lending has clear advantages over decisions based on a single credit score or meetings between banker and client. Humans are more prejudiced than algorithms: Italian banks charge female owners of small businesses more than male owners, even though the women have lower failure rates. The cost of relationship lending encourages bankers to chase big customers rather than small ones. For young businesses and borrowers on the fringes of the banking system, risk assessment that scours the online world for information is better than a loan officer in a branch.
Third, the fintech newcomers will create a more diverse, and hence stable, credit landscape. The business of internet-based firms is less geographically concentrated than that of bricks-and-mortar lenders: small American banks already use lending platforms to diversify their own portfolios. More important, the fintech firms avoid the two basic risks inherent in banking: mismatched maturities and leverage. Banks take in short-term liabilities such as deposits and turn them into long-term assets such as mortgages. Fintech lenders like Lending Club, Prosper and Zopa simply match borrowers and savers directly. Banks borrow heavily to fund lending; the new platforms do not. Instead, a lender commits its money until the final payment is due and it bears the risk of default.
Traditional banks would take deposits and hold only safe, liquid assets, while fintech platforms matched borrowers and savers. Economies would operate with much less leverage than today. But long before then, upstarts will force banks to accept lower margins. Conventional lenders will charge more for the services that the newcomers cannot easily replicate, including the payments infrastructure and the provision of an insured current account. The bigger effect from the fintech revolution will be to force flabby incumbents to cut costs and improve the quality of their service. That will change finance as profoundly as any regulator has.
Source: https://www.economist.com
Which of the following is most opposite to the word ‘REPLICATE’ in the passage?

Question 26

Which of the following city hosted the 49th annual meeting of World Economic Forum (WEF)?

Question 27

Which is the second official language of Himachal Pradesh?

Question 28

In the interim budget 2019 presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, which Kisan yojana was launched recently?

Question 29

Who among the following Indian footballer has won the first ever Football Ratna award?

Question 30

Who has been appointed as the Prime Minister of Taiwan?
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Sep 30PO, Clerk, SO, Insurance