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
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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
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