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1.Banking system.

2.Banking services for public.

Ex. 1. Read the text and compare the banking system in the UK to the banking system in Russia.

The banking system in the United Kingdom is made up of a variety of institutions supervised by the country’s central bank, The Bank of England. This bank looks after the government’s finance and monetary policy and act as banker to other banks. However, for the general public and many businesses, banking services are provided by commercial banks, or clearing banks, which have branches throughout the country. These banks offer a wide range of services which include accepting deposits, making loans and managers customers’ accounts. Merchant banks, on the other hand, do not deal with the public but specialize in services for companies or corporate customers. They are particularly active in arranging mergers and acquisitions and in advising on aspects of corporate finance.

Ex. 2. Study the information about different services that banks provide for the general public. Explain the words in bold. Make a list of bank services. Tick the services you use.

I’m Lisa. I have an account at my local branch of one of the big high-street banks. I have a current account for writing cheques, paying by debit card and paying bills. It’s joint account with my husband. Normally, we’re in the black, but sometimes we spend more money than we have in the account and we go into the red. This overdraft is agreed by the bank up to a maximum of $500, but we pay quite a high interest rate on it. I also have a deposit account or saving account for keeping money longer term. This account pays us interest (but not very much, especially after tax!).We have a credit card with the same bank too. Buying with plastic is very convenient. We pay off what we spend each month, so we don’t pay interest. The interest rate is even higher than for overdrafts!

Like many British people, we have a mortgage, a loan to buy our house.

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Ex. 3. Which of the items would you use if you needed to

1.check how much money you had in your bank account several weeks ago?

2.take money with you for a visit to foreign country?

3.see how much you have to pay for the electricity you used last month?

4.send payment by post?

5.take money out of your account on Sunday?

Ex. 4. Decide which of these things may happen to you and which are unlikely to happen. Write complete sentences using the appropriate verb forms.

1.If / go abroad next summer / change / some money into traveller’s cheques.

If I go abroad next summer I will change some money into traveller’s cheques. (may happen)

If I went abroad next summer I would change some money into traveller’s cheques. (is unlikely to happen)

2.If / lose / credit card / inform / the bank immediately.

3.If / need some money / ask / the bank manager for a loan.

4.If / find / mistakes on my bank statement / change / a different bank.

5.If / earn / more money / be able to / save more.

6.If / order / chequebook / get / it before the end of the week?

Ex. 5. Complete the passage using words from the box and the information in the bank statement bellow.

Jane Sadler opened her 1account with the Medway Bank on 28th January with a cash 2_______ of $300. On 15th February she wrote a 3________ for $53.25 and this appeared as a 4_________ on the bank statement on 20th February. On 22nd February she took out $60 in 5_________ from a cashpoint machine. On the following day the bank debited $33.50 from her account for a 6_________ she had made using her 7________. Her monthly salary was paid directly into her account and this appeared as a 8_________ of $802.20 on 26th February. There were no further 9________ on her account and she finished the month with a 10_________ of $955.45.

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Ex. 7. Choose the correct alternative to complete each sentence:

10. The amount of money a lender receives for a loan or an investment, expressed as a

Ex. 8. The following famous quotations are about credit and borrowing and lending. Complete them with the appropriate words from the vocabulary above. Discuss these statements in groups.

A.In business, one way to obtain 1_______ is to create the impression one already has it.

B.Neither a 2_______ nor a 3________ be.

C.An acquaintance is someone we know well enough to 4________ from, but not well enough to 5________ to.

D.A 6_______ card is an anesthetic which simply delay the pain.

Ex. 9. Read some statements about money and give their Russian equivalents. Discuss them in groups. Find some other statements or proverbs about money and explain how you understand them.

1.Money is the root of all evil.

2.A fool and his money are soon parted.

3.Money burns a hole in my pocket.

4.Put your money where your mouth is.

5.Time is money.

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Ex. 10. Read the text about the history of money.

A. Make a list of six different things that have been used as money.

FUNNY MONEY.

In 1642, a law was passed in Virginia saying that tobacco was to be the only currency in the colony and although a form of paper money was introduced later, tobacco remained the basis of the Virginian currency for over a century. This is not as strange as it might seem.

0 (H). Back in prehistoric times, sharp stones for making axes were used as money by Stone Age people. 1 ( ).

Later, when metal became more widely used, pieces of bronze were made into small knives, shirts or spades, and these could be exchanged for the objects they represented. In more recent times, some of the most varied items have been used as money, such as dog’s teeth in New Guinea or whales’ teeth in the Pacific Islands. But the greatest success story among strange currencies were undoubtedly cowry shells, which for many centuries were accepted as payment throughout much of Africa and Asia.

2 ( ). This had been used in some parts of the world for well over a thousand years.

Paper was invented by a Chinese government minister, T’sai Lun in AD 105. 3 ( ).

This worked very well, and then the famous traveler Marco Polo visited the empire from 1275 to 1292, during the rule of Kublai Khan, he marveled at its sophisticated use throughout the emperor’s lands.

One of the most successful forms of currency was invented during the rule of the Chinese emperor Wu Ti. When he found himself short of cash, he made a plan to raise money from his wealthy noblemen. First of all the emperor collected all the white deer in the country and kept them in a royal park. Then he passed a law saying that anyone who wanted to come to emperor’s court must wear a white mask made of deer skin.

4 ( ).

In time, the noblemen who had bought masks would offer to sell them to colleagues in return for goods and services, and in this way the deerskins became a type of currency. In contrast, one of the least successful currencies of all times was the German mark in the 1920s. 5 ( ).

At the height of the crisis, when an inhabitant of Berlin went into a local café and ordered a coffee priced at 5,000 marks, by the time he came to pay the bill, it had risen to 8,000 marks. Prices were rising at 60 per cent an hour.

In the end the currency became completely worthless. 6 ( ).

This of course was the system that had been used thousands of years ago, long before money was even invented.

From ENCYCLOPEDIA Britannica 2003.