10. Questions for discussion

1. What’s the best way of making a lot of money?

2. Have you ever raised money for charity?

3. Do you worry about money?

4. Why does money have value?

5. What’s the largest amount of money you’ve ever had in your wallet/purse?

6. Does having a lot of money make someone more attractive?

7. Do you ever run out of money? How much pocket money should a 18-year-old get?

8. Is the demand for money a critical component in the formulation of and implementation of monetary policy?

11. Home reading text. Read and translate the following text Electronic money

Electronic money refers to cash and transactions using electronic means, encompassing the use of computer networks (such as the Internet) and digital stored value systems. Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) is an example of electronic money. It is also a collective term for financial cryptography technologies enabling it.

While this has been an interesting problem for cryptography, the use of digital cash so far has been relatively low. One rare success has been Hong Kong's Octopus card system, which started as a transit payment system and has grown into a widely used electronic cash system.

Technically, electronic money can be an independent currency, just like Euro before the legal tender of Euro was introduced in 2003. However, as vendors lack the ability to back the money with commodities nor the power to persuade people to have faith in their currency and make people use them like central banks do (see fiat money), more commonly the electronic money is used as a non-physical form of the another currency (for example, stored-value card). The process of transferring money between bank accounts is basically still the same as it has been for decades. However, it has become almost instantaneous with the introduction of electronic communication. Many countries nowadays have a sophisticated direct debit system, that works in the following manner:

A bank card is used to indicate which bank account the money should be taken out off. The bank card has the account number printed on it, but the number is also stored electronically in the magnetic strip at the back or the computer chip embedded in the card. A card reader incorporated in or attached to the cash register is used to read the card, and to automatically include the account number of the recipient of the money, often a shop keeper or business owner. The customer has to enter a pin number, the digital equivalent of the signature.

The amount to be transferred is determined by the cash register. Often, the cashier doesn't even have to enter the amount manually, it is automatically submitted by the cash register. At the end of the process, the customer presses the OK button to complete the transaction. This sends all data associated with the transfer to the bank of the recipient. That bank then sends a message to the client's bank, asking for the transfer of funds. In practice, this takes only a few seconds, so the money has already been transferred when the client's arrives home with the purchased goods. Because the whole process of transferring money takes so little time nowadays, it feels as if the bank card has turned into a form of money.