- •State educational institution
- •Contents
- •Part I. Reading for information
- •I. Headlines
- •II. The plan for rendering an article.
- •Article I Russians Get ‘Gold Medal’ for Cyber Fraud
- •Article II Female Discovered in Trunk of Car at u.S./Canada Border
- •Article III cbp Officers Intercept Marijuana Smuggling Attempt in New York
- •Article IV Border Patrol Stops Drug Smuggler, Seizes Meth on I-5
- •Article V Siemens Managers Admit Bribing Russian Officials
- •Article VI Drug Police Seize Cannabis Garden
- •Article VII Afgan Drug Lords Bypassing Central Asia
- •Article VIII Bank Clients’ Data Faces Scrutiny
- •Vedomosti
- •Article IX Branding: a crucial defence in guarding market share
- •Article X uk government backtracks over bribery
- •Article XI Globalisation needs no defence – it needs to be questioned
- •Article XII Breaking the habit
- •Part II. Reading for analysis Text I
- •The custom of customs
- •1. Whole numbers
- •2. Decimals
- •Text II
- •Anything to declare?
- •Text III
- •Full exposure
- •Text IV
- •Counterfeiting and piracy: crime of the 21st century
- •Дозажигался…
- •Counterfeiting, the Internet and the postal dilemma
- •Text VI
- •Call of the wild
- •Russia Backs Pact to Save Wild Tigers
- •Text VII
- •Trafficking drugs into Europe
- •The cocaine business
- •Text VIII
- •Sniffy customers
- •Text IX
- •Classification of goods
- •The Harmonized System Convention
- •Text XI
- •Customs valuation
- •Text XII
- •Meeting the challenges of the 21st century
- •Part III. Supplementary reading not guilty
- •Smuggler
- •Two coats
- •In the driving seat
- •At the customs office
- •Dutch cigarettes
- •A present from strasbourg
- •Coping with smuggling in the middle ages
- •A true story
- •A great deal of trouble
- •Travels with charley in search of america
- •The word
- •Tests Test 1 Coke and the Colonel’s wife
- •Test 2 On the border
- •Test 3 Drug Detector Dogs in Customs work
- •Test 4 Lexical – grammar test
- •Bibliography
Article VIII Bank Clients’ Data Faces Scrutiny
By Yulia Govorun
Vedomosti
Federal tax, customs and financial markets officials have set their sights on banks’ client confidentiality, which analysts said could shake confidence in the entire banking system.
Last summer the Finance Ministry proposed draft amendments to the law on foreign currency oversight, under which the Federal Tax Service would receive the ability to ask banks for transaction certificates and information about clients’ transactions.
If the changes are passed, banks would have to give tax officials not only information about clients’ accounts and their bank statements, but also customs declarations and documents that are used to conduct foreign-currency operations or confirm the exchange of goods.
In December 2009, the Federal Customs Service also decided to expand its powers. The service prepared draft amendments to the Customs Code, under which customs officials would be able to seize cash in rubles or foreign currencies for up to five days, as well as checks if the traveler refuses to declare the source of the funds.
Under the proposals, the customs service would be able to request information about the source of funds received, which is currently protected under bank secrecy.
“I really don’t get why people carry cash around with them when there are cards,” a high-ranking source at the Federal Customs Service told Vedomosti. “But I do have a possible answer. They need to pay for their personal import businesses, since it’s easier to do that with cash.”
The Federal Service for Financial Markets is also looking for access to bank secrets. Those powers are listed in the bill on counteracting the illegal use of insider information and manipulation of the market, which the State Duma passed in a first reading in April 2009.
The bill has a clause saying the Central Bank is required to grant authorities’ requests for information, “including information classified as commercial, professional or banking secrets.” The rule is meant to help uncover and prevent the use of insider information.
Under the law on banks and banking activity, access to bank secrets is available to the courts, the Audit Chamber, the tax and customs services, the Pension Fund, social insurance funds and the court marshals. But the information they can receive is limited based on their specific work.
The entire understanding of bank secrecy is being discredited, said Lidia Gorshkova, head of the banking practice at Pepeliaev Group.
In other countries, tax and customs officials cannot access bank secrets, MDM-Bank chairman Oleg Vyugin said. If those secrets are not a secret to those agencies, then it will shake confidence in the banking system, he said.
Dmitry Rudenko, a member of the executive board at VTB 24, said the discussion should be on how information is disclosed, not on completely freeing fiscal agencies from limits on bank secrecy. “I don’t want to give information to people from the communal services department or the traffic police,” he said.
Bank secrecy needs to be preserved, though two or three agencies should have access, said Yevgeny Retyunsky, a former member of the executive board at Barclays Bank.
Task 1. Read the article.
Task 2. Find the expressions in the article that mean:
careful examination
plan
a small change, improvement
a company
the right to use, to enter etc.
special knowledge of a particular organization
existing before but not now
Task 3. Match 1 – 8 to a) – h) to form partnerships used in the article.
1. bank clients’ a) certificates
2. currency b) information
3. transaction c) information
4. customs d) regulation
5. to request e) secrecy
6. insider f) data
7. bank g) agencies
8. fiscal h) declaration
Task 4. Complete the table using the words from the article.
-
Verb
Noun
…
…
receive
…
declare
…
seize
…
request
disclose
amendment
regulation
…
information
…
operations
…
proposal
…
…
Task 5. Over to you. What is the key message of the article?
Task 6. Render the article.