Bank role

Ø 1) What is the role of a bank in a country?

Ø 2) Scan the text and name the paragraphs which give the answers to the questions:

a) What bank is this text about?

b) What kind of stuff does this bank have?

c) What does “middle banking” mean?

d) What stuff skills does this bank need?

e) What is the policy of the bank concerning deposits and withdrawals?

f) What possibility for the further development of the bank does its chief executive point out?

g) What is the advantage of this bank as compared with foreign banks operating in Ireland?

h) When does the strength of Anglo Irish, as a niche bank, come to the fore?

(1) Anglo Irish Bank has come a fair distance over the past 10 years or so. It is hard to believe that back in 1986 Anglo Irish had net worth of just £ 2m. Today, its net worth is £ 2bn and it employs 425 people.

(2) Last Friday, when chief executive Sean FitzPatrick launched the bank’s new corporate logo, it marked the bank’s development from an unproven minnow attracting a lot of suspicion, to an established business bank that has been one of the star performers on the market over the last year.

(3) Populated with experienced bankers, it is easy to say that the bank was always going to get the recognition it has today. But it was not always that straightforward - a point that FitzPatrick concedes. “We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. We didn’t articulate what the bank was about. We didn’t tell our story well enough, ” he said, adding: “We’re taken very seriously now. We’ve been a long time banging on the door.”

(4) FitzPatrick describes Anglo Irish’s business as “middle banking” – unit loans of between £ 0.5 m to £ 1.5 m aimed at a professional buying a practice or property for their business and proprietorial directors with similar needs.

5) If it sounds focused that is because it is focused. Around 80% of the public will never come into contact with the bank because it does not do consumer lending or home loans.

(6) Servicing the needs of the middle business market requires particular skills, according to FitzPatrick. “I remember going home on a train and meeting a guy I knew who worked in a bank. By knowing my salary, he was able to give me a home loan by the end of the journey. That is anonymous lending. We need to have a lot more knowledge about our customers. It is their main business venture and they will always have another bank. Every customer of ours will have two banks, ” he said.

(7) This need to know customers has placed a self-imposed limit on Anglo’s lending markets of Ireland and Britain. “We know the markets very well. They have similar legal and cultural structures”.

(8) For acquisitions, the same criteria apply: “We only buy loan books which we would do ourselves and in areas we know.”

(9) However, on deposits the bank has no such restrictions. It owns a private bank in Austria and has an operation in the Isle of Man. Anglo Irish is looking at the private banking industry in Germany, France and Italy with a view to expansion, FitzPatrick says, adding, “We are more likely to make an acquisition in Europe over the next six to nine months than Britain or Ireland.”

(10) Over the next five years, the aspiration is to repeat the performance of the last five by growing earnings per share by15% per annum, in the process doubling the size of the bank.

(11) A major acquisition would quicken that process and Anglo Irish is known to be one of the many banks with designs on Irish Central Bank if/when Finance Minister puts it on the market.

(12) “We haven’t been asked to bid, but my belief is it will be sold over the next year. We will look at it very closely. Irish Central is a very good bank with a very strong management team and is complimentary to the business we are in.”

(13) Foreign banks have actually been moving out of Irish middle banking in recent years because of their lack of local knowledge, according to FitzPatrick. “Because Anglo Irish is an Irish bank, its decisions are made in Dublin, not Frankfurt, London or New York. It gives us a strong advantage, ” he said. FitzPatrick believes retail banks will have more success coming into the Irish market because customer efficiency rather than customer service are more important in selling such products.

(14) That said he is not so naï ve as to fully discount the possibility of Anglo Irish being taken over by a European predator. “We are not encouraging it or feel we need it. But the shareholder is the final arbitrator. It is a possibility; I don’t think it’s a probability. “There is a lot of growth left in Anglo Irish as an independent bank, ” he said. FitzPatrick believes Anglo Irish Bank will be well equipped to cope when the current economic boom inevitably comes to an end. “Decisions we make today have to count in three years time. We have to be very careful. Our criteria for lending haven’t changed in the past two years despite the demand, ” he said.

(15) “The strength of Anglo Irish as a niche bank will come to the fore in difficult times. It will accentuate the differences. We have our greatest growth in difficult times.” There had been suggestions that FitzPatrick would move into a new role of chairman to fill the vacancy. “I enjoy Anglo Irish Bank. I am part of a team here that has done particularly well over the past five years. I have the interest, energy and enthusiasm to continue, ” he says.

Ø 3) What other heading would you choose for this text instead of “BANK ROLE” out of the following:

a) ANGLO IRISH BANK

b) A NICHE BANK FOR SPECIFIC CUSTOMERS

c) THE MIDDLE BUSINESS MARKET BANK

d) UP THE LADDER TO SUCCESS

e) Suggest your own variant

Ø 4) Find professionally relevant terms in the text and translate them into Russian, for example: net worth – собственный капитал, стоимость имущества за вычетом обязательств.