Types of Bank

central banks	building societies	finance house
commercial banks	merchant banks	investment banks
supranational banks	universal banks

(1)........... supervise the banking system; fix the minimum interest rate; issue bank notes; control the money supply; influence exchange rates; and act as lender of last resort.

(2)........... are businesses that trade in money. They receive and hold deposits in current and savings accounts, pay money according to customers' instructions, lend money, and offer-investment advice, foreign exchange facilities, and so on. In some countries such as England these banks have branches in all major towns; in other countries there are smaller regional banks. Under American law, for example, banks can operate in only one state. Some countries have banks that were originally confined to a single industry, e.g. the Credit Agricole in France, but these now usually have a far wider customer base.

In some European countries, notably Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, there are (3)........... which combine deposit and loan banking with share and bond dealing, investment advice, etc. Yet even universal banks usually form a subsidiary, known as a (4)............ to lend money - at several per cent over the base lending rate - for hire purchase or instalment credit, that is, loans to consumers that are repaid in regular, equal monthly amounts.

In Britain, the USA and Japan, however, there is, or used to be, a strict separation between commercial banks and banks that do stockbroking or bond dealing. Thus in Britain, (5).......... specialise in raising funds for industry on the various financial markets, financing international trade, issuing and underwriting securities, dealing with takeovers and mergers, issuing government bonds, and so on. They also offer stockbroking and portfolio management services to rich corporate and individual clients. (6)........... in the USA are similar, but they can only act as intermediaries offering advisory services, and do not offer loans themselves.

Yet despite the Glass-Steagall Act in the USA, and Article 65, imposed by the Americans in Japan in 1945, which enforce this separation, the distinction between commercial and merchant or investment banks has become less clear in recent years. Deregulation in the US and Britain is leading to the creation of "financial supermarkets" - conglomerates combining the services previously offered by stockbrokers, banks, insurance companies, etc.

In Britain there are also (7)........... that provide mortgages, i.e. they lend money to home-buyers on the security of houses and flats, and attract savers by paying higher interest than the banks. The savings and loan associations in the United States served a similar function, until most of them went spectacularly bankrupt at the end of the 1980s.

There are also (8)........... such as the World Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which are generally concerned with economic development.

X. Summarize the following text in English in about 100 words:

Дата добавления: 2014-12-29