Implications of this possible move.

Contents 4

Student’s Book Content 5

Introduction 8

Who is English for the Financial Sector for? 8

Pair and group work 9

Teaching pre-service and in-service learners 9

Finding out more about finance 9

The Cambridge International Certificate in Financial English 10

The organization of the financial industry 11

Lead in 11

Vocabulary 1 12

Listening 1: The development of the financial industry 13

Listening 2: Going international 15

Discussion 16

Vocabulary 2 17

Reading: Regulation and deregulation 17

Discussion 17

Language focus: Possibility, necessity and 17

prohibition 17

Practice 18

Telephoning 20

Lead in 20

Listening 1: Arranging meetings 21

Practice 1 26

Language focus: Pronouncing the alphabet and saying telephone numbers 28

Listening 2: Handling information 32

Useful phrases 39

Practice 2 39

Retail banking 43

Lead in 43

Reading 1: Commercial and investment banking 43

Discussion 45

Vocabulary 1 45

Listening: Retail banking 45

-iscussion 24

ocabulary 2 24

Reading 2: The future of bank branches 24

Discussion 24

Language focus: Likelihood and probability 24

Business correspondence 1 26

Lead in 26

Discussion 26

Language focus: Formal and informal style 1 26

Writing 1 ANSWERS 27

Useful phrases 28

Vocabulary 28

Practice 28

Writing 2 28

Loans and credit 30

Lead in 31

eading: Banks and bonds 31

::abulary 32

Listening 1: Lending decisions 32

Listening 2: Margins OB&tapescript 34

Language focus: Advising and suggesting 35

Practice 1 36

Practice 2 37

Writing 37

Business correspondence 2 38

Language focus: Formal and informal style 2 38

Listening 1: A letter of complaint 39

Writing 1: Replying to a letter of complaint 40

Listening 2: An angry phone call 42

Writing 2 43

Writing 3 43

Accounting 45

Lead in 46

Vocabulary 1 46

listening 1: Types of accounting 46

Listening 2: Financial statements 47

Vocabulary 2 47

Language focus: Talking about figures 1 48

Listening 3: Barclays’ balance sheet 49

⁼'actice 50

Socializing 52

Lead in 52

Listening 1: Greeting people and making introductions 52

Z scussion 55

Language focus: Making small talk and keeping the conversation going 57

Practice 1 57

Discussion 57

Listening 2: Talking about your career 57

Useful phrases 58

Practice 2 58

Listening 3: Saying goodbye 58

Practice 3 58

Central banking 59

Discussion 60

Vocabulary 60

Reading: The Bank of England 61

Listening 1: Monetary policy 61

Discussion 62

Language focus: Talking about figures 2 62

Listening 2: Saying figures 62

Practice 64

Meetings 1 66

Lead in 66

Discussion 66

Vocabulary 66

Listening 1: Chairing a meeting 66

Listening 2: Interruptions and 68

Discussion 74

Language focus: Controlling meetings 74

Practice 75

Financing international trade 75

ad in 76

Vocabulary 76

Reading: How a letter of credit works 76

Listening: Asking for information about bills of exchange 77

Language focus: Checking and confirming information 78

Practice 79

Meetings 2 80

Lead in 80

Language focus: Asking for and giving opinions, agreeing and disagreeing 81

Practice 1 82

Listening: Concluding a meeting 82

Practice 2 84

Foreign exchange 86

Lead in 86

Reading 1: Exchange rates 87

Listening: Freely floating exchange rates 87

Discussion 88

Reading 2: Currency trading 88

Language focus: Describing trends and graphs 88

Practice 89

Writing reports 1 91

Lead in 91

Discussion 91

Reading: Facts and opinions 91

Useful phrases 92

Vocabulary 93

Language focus: Linking words 100

Stocks and shares 102

Discussion 104

Vocabulary 1 ANSWERS 105

Reading: Why stock markets matter 105

Vocabulary 2 105

Language focus: Understanding market reports 106

Practice 1 107

Practice 2 108

Writing reports 2 108

Lead in 109

Reading: Head Office relocation 109

Discussion 110

Listening 1: Catering choices 110

Listening 2: Health and leisure needs 113

Language focus: Style and tone 122

Mergers and acquisitions 128

Lead in 128

Reading: Mergers, takeovers and buyouts 128

Vocabulary 128

Listening: The role of banks 129

Language focus: Cause and effect 130

Practice 1 130

Practice 2 130

Negotiating 1 131

Lead in 131

Vocabulary 131

Reading: Learn to Love Negotiating 131

Language focus: Making proposals, counter-proposals and conditional offers 133

Listening 1: Conditional offers 133

Practice 1 133

Listening 2: Should we grant this loan? 133

Discussion 134

Practice 2 134

Writing 134

Derivatives 136

Lead in 136

Reading 1: Derivatives 136

Listening: Derivatives 137

Reading 2: An investment ‘time bomb’ 138

Language focus: Clarifying, summarizing and paraphrasing 139

Practice 139

Discussion 139

Negotiating 2 140

Lead in 140

Discussion 140

Vocabulary 140

Listening 1: Concluding an unsuccessful negotiation 140

Language focus: Dealing with conflict 142

Discussion 142

Listening 2: Concluding a successful negotiation 142

Useful phrases 143

Listening 3: Saturday opening 143

Practice 144

Asset management 146

Lead in 146

Listening 1: Asset management and allocation 146

Listening 2: Investment styles 148

Reading: Fund management 150

Discussion 150

Language focus: Using diplomatic language 150

Practice 150

Writing 150

Presentations 1 153

Lead in 153

Discussion 153

Reading: Learning styles 155

Language focus: Visual aids 155

Useful phrases 156

Listening: The introduction 157

Practice 158

Regulatingthe financial sector 158

Lead in 159

Reading: Conflicts of interest 159

Vocabulary 1 ANSWERS 161

Listening 1: The Financial Services Authority 161

Listening 2: Conflicts of interest 162

Language focus: Word formation 163

Vocabulary 2 164

Discussion 165

Presentations 2 166

Lead in 166

Discussion 166

Listening 1: Parts of a presentation 166

Practice 1 167

Listening 2: The end of a presentation 167

Useful phrases 168

Practice 2 168

Language focus: Dealing with questions and troubleshooting 168

Practice 3 169

English for the Financial Sector 170

2. False. She says this move might cause adverse publicity, but this could come from journalists, political commentators, etc., rather than dissatisfied cusiomers.

VOCABULARY NOTE

Centre is spelt the British English way here and in the Student’s Book as this situation involves a British bank. The American English spelling is center.

Discussion

The interruptions in the meeting would be quite unacceptable in many Asian and Latin cultures, as anyone interrupting in this way would probably be told. There is perhaps more tolerance for such interruptions in in-company meetings in Anglophone cultures.

Language focus: Controlling meetings

The aim of this exercise is to give learners some other common phrases for controlling meetings. At the end of this section, learners should have a useful reference table (in Listening 1) with all of the relevant phrases.

ANSWERS

a4 Ы2 c6 d2 e8 fll g8 hll i9 j? klO

19. m3 nl

NOTE

In these sentences, the chair uses first names to refer to the other speakers. This is fairly standard in America and Britain, but much less common in the rest of Europe and in Asia, where long-standing colleagues are still likely to use the equivalent of Mr or Mrs and the family name.

Practice

See pages 118,12?, 132 and 135 of the Student's Book

for the file cards.

The subject of this role play (howto improve your knowledge of finance and English) should be very familiar to all learners, whether they are working or not. The roles deliberately have conflicting ideas in order to provoke discussion and give the chair (Role A) an opportunity to practise using controlling language. Divide the learners into groups of four and assign each learner a role. Learners will need some time to prepare their role and the chair (Role A) will need to refer to the language from the unit. Give the learners a time limit for their meeting so that they can swap roles and each of them can practise being chair.

• 52 Unit 10 Meetings 1

Financing international trade

To learn about: letters of credit and bills of exchange; key vocabulary of letters of credit and bills of exchange To learn how to: check and confirm information

To practise: checking and confirming information about financial products

3ACKGR0UN0: FINANCING FOREIGN TRADE

national trade finance is a specialized, and •singly complicated, branch of finance. Many le working in the financial sector never have to al with it, but if you have learners who work in the L they can help explain things.

Лг excellent source of information on trade finance [a* the time of writing) is the Allied Bank of Ireland Finance Services'website, at http://www. adefinance.com. This includes diagrams explaining ;ers of credit and bills of exchange, and a full sary. This site is the inspiration behind the trade e report In Unit 14.

unit concentrates on the two most common ways “nancing foreign trade: letters of credit and bills of nge. Both of these are defined in the Student's . which also gives a complete account of the

• stages involved in paying for a transaction by of a letter of credit. More information about bills of nge is given in the Listening section.

ad in

•us exercise with books closed, as the answer to the question is just below in the Vocabulary exercise, answer is letter of credit and bill of exchange, these are defined and discussed in the sections .) If you expect the learners to know the answers se questions, they could discuss them in pairs. If т-ink only a few learners will know, you could try to answers from the whole class.

Vocabulary

ANSWERS

1. letter of credit

2. bill of exchange

Reading: How a letter of credit works

Ask learners to work together in pairs or small groups, using the diagram to help them.

ANSWERS

1. 1 The applicant (the buyer) completes a contract with the seller.

2. The buyer fills in a letter of credit application form and sends it to his or her bank for approval.

3. The issuing bank (the buyer’s bank) approves the application and sends the letter of credit details to the seller's bank (the advising bank).

4. The advising bank authenticates the letter of credit and sends the beneficiary (the seller) the details. The seller examines the details of the letter of credit to make sure that he or she can meet all the conditions. If necessary, he or she contacts the buyer and asks for amendments to be made. .

2. 5 When the seller (beneficiary) is satisfied with the conditions of the letter of credit, he or she ships the goods.

6. The seller presents the documents to his or her bankers (the advising bank). The advising bank examines these documents against the details on the letter of credit and the International Chamber of Commerce rules.

? If the documents are in order, the advising bank sends them to the issuing bank for payment or acceptance. If the details are not correct, the advising bank tells the seller and waits for corrected documents or further instructions.

8. The issuing bank (the buyer’s bank) examines the documents from the advising bank. If they are in order, the bank releases the documents to the buyer, pays the money promised or agrees to pay it in

the future, and advises the buyer about the payment. (If the details are not correct, the issuing bank contacts the buyer for authorization to pay or accept the documents.) The buyer collects the goods.

8. The issuing bank advises the advising/ confirming bank that the payment has been made.

9. The advising/ confirming bank pays the seller and notifies him or her that the payment has been made.

Listening: Asking for information about bills of exchange

As there may be some unfamiliar words in this conversation (e.g. drawer, drawee, endorsed), ask learners to read through the questions before they listen. The meanings of the words are explained in the dialogue. Learners will probably need to listen more than once to get all the answers. After listening, ask learners if they can give any examples from their work where they have had to ask for clarification, or clarify something for colleagues or customers.

QE)tapescript

Bank advisor: Trade Finance. Can I help you?

Customer: Hello, I’m callingfrom Capper Trading. We've just had a large export order - our first, in fact - and we’re planning to use a bill of exchange or a bank draft. Unfortunately, I’m not at all clear about some of the conditions.

Bank advisor: Well, perhaps I can clarify them for you. That’s what I’m here for!

Customer: OK. Your instructions talk about the drawer, the drawee and the payee. But aren't the drawer and the payee the same thing?

Bank advisor: No. The drawer is the party that issues a bill of exchange, and the payee is the party to whom the bill is payable.

Customer: Sorry, I don’t quite follow you. Surely the bill is payable to us, as we're the seller?

Bank advisor: Well, that depends whether you use a bank draft or a trade draft. A bank draft is payable to the bank. Unless you use a trade draft, issued by you.

Customer: Er, could you go over that again, please?

Bank advisor: If you use a bank draft, the buyer pays us, and then we pay the money to you, less any charges due to us. If you, the exporter, issue the bill, it’s referred to as a trade draft, and it’s payable to you.

Customer: Oh, I see. And if you issue the bill, it's

generally payable 30,60 or 90 days from the bill of lading date, is that right?

Bank advisor: Yes.

Customer: What exactly does that mean?

Bank advisor: The bill of lading is a document that the ship’s master signs, acknowledging that the goods have been received for shipment, describing them, and giving details of where they are going. But of course you can always get the bill endorsed.

Customer: Sorry, did you say 'endorsed’?

Bank advisor: Yes, you can endorse it to the bank.

Customer: Could you explain that in more detail?

z*-*. advisor: Yes. We can endorse the bill before it matures. That means we guarantee to pay the bill if the buyer doesn't. Then you can sell it at a discount in the financial markets.

Cestomer: I don’t quite see what you mean, rank advisor: It means you can get most of the money immediately, and you don’t have to wait for the buyer to pay the bill. For example, you sell the bill at 99%, and the discount represents the interest the buyer could have received on their money until the bill's maturity date.

C-stomer: Oh right. OK, thank you very much, rank advisor: My pleasure. Goodbye.

ANSWERS

1. 1 The drawer is whoever issues the bill of

exchange; the drawee is the company that has to pay the amount on the bill, and the payee is the company or institution that is paid.

2. A bank draft is issued by the bank, which receives the money (before paying it to the exporter); a trade draft is issued by the exporting company, which receives the money directly.

3. Because they can get the bill endorsed by a bank, which guarantees to pay it if the importer does not. The exporter can then sell it on the financial markets and get the money that way.

4. Because the buyer deducts the amount of interest it could have gained on the money until the bill matures.

2. Sorry, I don't quite follow you.

Could you go over that again, please?

What exactly does that mean?

Sorry, did you say...?

Could you explain that in more detail?

1. don't quite see what you mean.

Language focus: Checking and confirming information

With books closed, ask learners if they know any phrases they can use when:

• they don’t hear what someone has said

• they don't understand what someone has said

• they don’t think someone is being clear or precise enough.

The phrases for each of these situations are listed later in the Language focus.

POSSIBLE ANSWERS

2. 1 Could you repeat that?/I'm sorry, could you say that (last part) again?

2. What exactly do you mean by beneficiary? / Could you explain beneficiary, please?

3. Could you be more specific about which conditions, please?