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Checking accounts
In the United States, checking accounts are available only at commercial banks. Commercial banks specialize in demand deposits, such as checking accounts. A checking account is money that a customer deposits in order to use that money to write checks. Saving accounts pay the depositor interest but checking accounts do not. In fact, checking account customers pay the bank a service charge for the bookkeeping involved in administering the account.
The method of recordkeeping is also different in savings accounts and checking accounts. A depositor must present his passbook for any savings account transaction. The bank records these transactions in the depositor’s passbook. Checking account customers, however, do not have passbooks. They themselves record the amounts of the checks that they write and they receive a monthly statement from the bank. This statement lists all the checks that the bank paid and all deposits that the account holder made during the month. The bank usually sends the statements with the customer’s cancelled checks. The customer then compares the balance on the statement with the balance in his own records by subtracting the total of his outstanding checks.
There are other fees that the bank may collect from checking account holders. For instance, banks charge a fee for stopping payment to a check. When a depositor decides that be doesn’t want the bank to pay a payee, but he bas already written a check to that person, he may give the bank a stop payment order. The bank will then refuse to pay this check, and charges the depositor a fee. ’Banks also charge a depositor a fee when he is overdrawn. A depositor is overdrawn when he writes a check for more money than the balance in his account: The bank marks the check "insufficient funds", returns it, and charges a penalty for it. In everyday language we say that a check returned for insufficient funds has "bounced".
Recent changes in banking regulations have allowed savings banks to offer negotiable order of withdrawal accounts. These accounts, called N. O. W. accounts, are very similar to checking accounts but they pay interest like savings accounts. The depositor can write withdrawal orders against the balance in the account. These withdrawal orders look like checks, and depositors receive a monthly statement summarizing deposits and withdrawals. There is often no service charge if depositors keep a minimum balance in their accounts. Commercial banks also offer N. O. W. accounts.
As far as checking accounts go, the difference between savings banks and commercial banks is growing smaller in the U. S.
State whether each statement is true or false based on the reading.
Checking accounts are available at savings banks.

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What was the American view of globalization ten years ago A. That it was a utopian idea, impossible to achieve. B. They thought it would soon create a single world banking system. C. Different areas of the world would still require different banks. D. Difference in time around the world would still cause problems.
As the US capital markets enter the 1990s, the reality is that globalization is still in its early stages and next decade as it was in the last. There has, however, been a qualitative change in the rhetoric.
Then, globalization was seen in the US as an opportunity. Now the US is far less confident of its ability to dominate the global market and is showing signs of falling behind its competitors. Globalization is now an urgent challenge.
Mr. Curtis Welling, managing director in charge of equities at First Boston, says, "The US has had a very geocentric view. Our hegemony over world capital flows was almost regarded as a birthright. As far as important capital flows are concerned, there was a real danger of the world passing us by. The US was in danger of becoming irrelevant."
While the US was once slow to realise its competitive position in world financial markets could be eroded. Mr. Welling believes that there is a growing awareness of the need to act quickly to position the nation’s markets and financial institutions for the future.
This concern has been crystallised in regulatory initiatives, legislative proposals and product innovations. Progressive attitudes at both the US Federal Reserve and the Securities and Ex- change Commission (SEC) are central to these efforts.
The SEC, which has just formed an Office of International Affairs, has shifted into top gear to harmonise regulations with overseas counterparts to promote the free and efficient flow of capital. The nuts and bolts of clearance and settlement, for example, are a priorty.
Mr. Welling of First Boston, puts the challenge in graphic terms: We have gone about as far as we can go with broadbrush conceptual descriptions of the global market. We can see the house, it looks great but nobody can live in it until the plumbing and electricity is in place.
In spite of all the talk of the global markets, it is startling that US pension funds have committed less than 3% of their 2 600 billion in assets to non - US securities. One key reason for this is that investors and traders have to negotiate a minefield of different regulations when operating in overseas markets.