C) Say a few words about services provided by commercial banks.

 

a)A bank was originally ... bench set up in the marketplace for ... exchange of money. In a commercial sense, a bank is ... establishment where money is received on deposit to be repaid on demand or at notice, as may be arranged, and where loans are negotiated, bills discounted, and general financial business transacted. The main functions of... modern commercial bank are:

• to receive money on current accounts repayable on demand, or on deposit accounts repayable subject to an agreed notice;

• to lend money by granting ... loans and ... overdrafts or discounting bills of exchange and ... promissory notes.

Apart from these two chief functions – linking up lenders and borrowers of capital – the bank performs many other functions:

• ... obtaining and giving information as to ... financial standing of customers:

• transferring funds for ... payments or ... investments;

• making foreign currency transactions;

• issuing letters of credit, drafts and travellers' cheques;

• undertaking duties of... agents, trustees and guarantors;

• performing leasing and factoring operations and others.

A very important part of any efficient banking system is ... interbank market.

Some banks get more ... deposits than requests for loans, and vice versa. The interbank market smooths out these imbalances by providing ... way for ... bank with too many deposits to pass them on to ... bank with too many loan requests. In London there are different interbank markets for different currencies and for deposits with different maturities. Of these, ... Eurodollar interbank market is particularly important, and LIBOR (the London interbank offered rate) is ... key dollar rate for all the world's international borrowing and lending.

Words уоu may need:

benchn скамья

sensen смысл

establishmentn учреждение

on depositна депозит

on demandпо требованию

negotiatev вести переговоры

billn вексель

repayableadj подлежащий оплате

bill of exchangeпереводной вексель

promissory noteпростой вексель

apart fromкроме, помимо

link upv связывать

financial standingфинансовое положение

to issue a letter of creditвыставлять/выписывать аккредитив

draftn тратта, переводной вексель

trusteen попечитель

guarantorn гарант

leasing and factoring operationsоперации по лизингу и факторингу

interbank marketмежбанковский рынок

vice versaнаоборот

to smooth out imbalancesсглаживать, устранять диспропорции

maturityn срок погашения обязательства; срок платежа

LIBORставка предложения (продавца) на лондонском межбанковском рынке депозитов