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    In 2002, banks in France introduced a new commission charge of 4. Cents for every cheque they handled because of the speeding up of the cheque-processing system. The banks argued that the faster system, rather than being more efficient and saving them money, actually meant they had to release funds to customers more quickly. But the competition authority has now decided that the commission charges were unjustified and that the banks illegally acted together to fix the rate that they all charged.

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    100920 Witn French Banks

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    In 2002, banks in France introduced a new commission charge of 4. Cents for every cheque they handled because of the speeding up of the cheque-processing system. The banks argued that the faster system, rather than being more efficient and saving them money, actually meant they had to release funds to customers more quickly. But the competition authority has now decided that the commission charges were unjustified and that the banks illegally acted together to fix the rate that they all charged.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    144 views2 pages

    Witn French Banks

    Uploaded by

    betrave
    In 2002, banks in France introduced a new commission charge of 4. Cents for every cheque they handled because of the speeding up of the cheque-processing system. The banks argued that the faster system, rather than being more efficient and saving them money, actually meant they had to release funds to customers more quickly. But the competition authority has now decided that the commission charges were unjustified and that the banks illegally acted together to fix the rate that they all charged.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 2

    BBC Learning English

    Words in the News


    20 September 2010
    French banks fined for fee cartel

    Eleven of the biggest banks in France have been fined a total of 384 million Euros by the
    competition authority for fixing amongst themselves a price they charge for handling cheques.
    Our Europe correspondent Jonty Bloom reports:

    In 2002, banks in France introduced a new commission charge of 4.3 cents for every cheque
    they handled because of the speeding up of the cheque-processing system.

    The banks argued that the faster system, rather than being more efficient and saving them
    money, actually meant that they had to release funds to customers more quickly, and
    therefore could not make as much money in interest payments themselves while waiting for
    the cheques to clear.

    But the competition authority has now decided that the commission charges were unjustified
    and that the banks illegally acted together to fix the rate that they all charged. The banks have
    a month to appeal.

    Jonty Bloom, BBC News, London

    Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2010


    Page 1 of 2
    bbclearningenglish.com
    Vocabulary and definitions

    commission charge amount of money charged for handling goods, based on


    the value of the goods

    cheque a piece of paper that you can sign to pay for things, instead
    of using money

    cheque-processing system process of moving money from one account to another

    argued expressed their reasons

    efficient effective or able to work without problems

    funds amounts of money

    customers people who pay to use a company's services

    interest charge made for borrowing money

    unjustified not fair

    to fix to arrange dishonestly

    More on this story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11369056


    Read and listen to the story and the vocabulary online:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2010/09/100920_witn_french_banks_story.shtml

    Words in the News © British Broadcasting Corporation 2010


    Page 2 of 2
    bbclearningenglish.com

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