Read the text and match the underlined words with their equivalents
Traditional banking
‘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 a 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 overdraftis 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 savings 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.’
Match the verbs with their equivalents.
| 1. high-street banks 2. a current account 3. debit card 4. joint account 5. in the black 6. go into the red 7. overdraft 8. interest rate 9. deposit account or savings account 10. credit card 11. pay off 12. mortgage | a) Пайыздық ставка b) Салымшының есебі c) Ағымдағы есеп d) Есеп айырысу e) Үй сатып алу үшін несие f) Орталық банк g) Артық жұмсау h) Біріккен есеп i) Қалыпты жағдайда j) Дебет карта k) Қарызға кіру l) Несие картасы |
Say if these statements true or false.
1. You talk about the local ‘agency’ of a high-street bank.
2. Americans refer to current accounts as check accounts.
3. A joint account is held by more than one person.
4. If you put 10 000 euros into a new account and spend 11 000 euros, you have an overdraft of 1000 euros and you are 1000 euros in the red.
5. An account for saving money is called a safe account.
6. An account that pays a lot of interest has a high interest rate.
7. If you pay for something with a credit card, you can say, informally, that you use plastic to pay for it.
8. If you pay the complete amount that you owe on a credit card, you pay it down.
B. New ways of banking
‘My name is Kevin. I wasn’t happy with my bank. There was always a queue, and on the bank statement that they sent each month they took money out of my account for banking charges that they never explained. So I moved to a bank that offers telephone banking. I can phone them any time to check my account balance (the amount I have in my account), transfermoney to other accounts and pay bills. Now they also offer Internet banking. I can manage my account sitting at my computer at home.’
3.4 Kevin is phoning his bank. What expressions of these two texts (A,B) could replace each of the underlined items?
1. I want to swap £500 from my savings account to my ordinary account, because I don’t want to have the situation where I’ve spent more than I’ve put in.
2. How much is in my savings account? What’s the amount in there at the moment?
3. On the savings account, what’s the percentage you pay to savers every year?
4. How much extra money have you added to my savings account in the last three months?
5. On the last list of the all the money going out of and coming into the account, there’s an amount that you’ve taken off the account that I don’t understand.
C. Personal investing
Lisa again: ‘We have a saving account at a building society which is going to be demutualized and turned into a bank with shareholders. All the members will get a windfall, a special once-only payment of some of the society’s assets to its members.
We have some unit trusts, shares in investment companies that put money from small investors like me into different companies. My cousin in the US calls unit trusts mutual funds.
I also pay contributions into a private pension, which will give me a regular income when I stop working. I’ve never joined a company pension scheme and the government state pension is very small!’