5. Explain the following English words and word combinations in your own words.

A private banking arm, investment ideas, initial public offerings, technology stocks, stock bubble market, synthetic products, a dedicated company, clampdown, tax evasion, liquid assets, minority shareholders, fierce competition.

6. Decide which of the following statements are right and which are wrong. Give the correct variants.

1. The Hong Kong offices of SG Private Banking Asia are usually decorated with expensive art collections.

2. Tiny, windowless meeting rooms help some SG clients unveil their innermost details of personal lives.

3. Mr Truchi supposes that large US investment banking groups are much more effective in building truly personal client relationships.

4. He is sure that private banking is about returns and investment ideas only.

5. SG Private Banking Asia was launched by Mr Truchi in 1997 after the Asian financial crisis.

6. Singapore-based firms have faced with a major issue, i.e. tax avoidance.

7. The clients of SG Private Banking are rich Japanese, Vietnamese and Koreans, members of Singapore-based mighty diasporas.

8. As a rule, US and European clients are always demanding less than their counterparts in Asia.

9. SG Private Banking Asia has some on-shore business in Japan.

10. Mr Truchi has been increasingly employing new staff for SG Private Banking Asia from year by year.

7. Make up your own sentences using the words and word combinations given below.

Transmission of wealth, to pit oneself against smb, to build truly personal client relationships, to hone one’s skills, to buck trend by doing smth, to remain unscathed, to push products, to be hit by a clampdown, to remain coy about smth, corporate advisory services, minority shareholders, to go through painful restructuring, to expand business into off-shore/on-shore markets.

8. In groups discuss the following questions.

1. What is the difference between a bank, a savings and loan corporation, a mutual savings bank, and a credit union?

2. How can you establish a good credit rating?

3. What are the services offered by a commercial bank?

4. Do you understand the difference between the so-called banks and nonbanks? Name a financial institution that could be called a nonblank.

5. What are some of the new services offered by commercial banks?

6. What are the primary functions of commercial banks?

9. Imagine you are one of the new financial officers sent in by FSLIC to help bail out a S&L that is in danger of going under. One of the causes of the S&L’s failure was the use of unsafe and unsound real estate acquisition practices. One of your attempts to save the S&L was to shut down its real estate development operations. This seemed like a logical move since the real estate investments were unsound. However, the real estate investments were an important source of revenue. It didn’t take long to see that another problem was created by cutting off these revenues when interest payments are due each day on depositors’ CDs. Your fellow managers suggest attracting new deposits by promising extremely high rates on CDs. Rather than invest the deposits, they suggest using them to pay the interest on earlier deposits and redemptions of CDs as they come due. Since the government insures deposits up to $100,000 regardless of the soundness of the institution, this strategy is legal. What would be the consequences of such plan? What ethical problems does this plan create? Would you agree to such a plan?