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SHORT PRESENTATION

Read the information below and think about it, making notes on the main points of your
presentation. Make a short presentation (10 minutes) on the basis of what is stated or
implied in the question you have to answer.

A. BANKING

1. How do banks make their money?

2. What is the difference between a credit card and a debit card?
3. What is your opinion about online banking?
4. What are some advantages of an offshore bank account?
5. Which is the role of the central bank and how does it control the supply of money in
circulation?
5. What would you do if a bank deposited one million dollars in your account?
6. Should the government bailout banks and financial institutions?
7. What is anonymous banking? Do you think it is ethical or not?
8. Which are the most common services offered by banks?
9. How can one select the right bank for his/her needs?
10. How many types of banks can you think of?

11. “Whenever there is a financial crisis, it is always the banks that get hit.” (Gordon Wu)
12. “Money in the bank is like toothpaste in the tube. Easy to take out, hard to put back.” (Earl
Wilson)
13. “A banker is a fellow who lends his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the
minute it begins to rain.” (Mark Twain)
14. This generation’s attitude is different from: “Pay cash and if you cannot afford it, don't buy
it”.
15. Banks will give you money only if you can prove that you don’t need it.
16. Banks are heartless creditors.
17. Banks encourage people to overspend.
18. “It is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up a bank clerk.”
19. Money does not grow on trees, no matter what kind we plant and where we plant it.
20. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

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21. “If you owe the bank $100 that’s your problem. But if you owe the bank $100 million, that’s
the bank’s problem.” (John Paul Getty)

B. MONEY, STOCKS and SHARES

22. Which are the main options for investment? Which is the riskiest and which is the safest?
23. What do you know about the Stock Exchange?
24. Should investors go for a diversified investment portfolio?
25. Would you rather go on the Stock Market by yourself or choose an investment company to
manage your holdings?
26. Suppose you won 20,000 EUR in the lottery? What would you do with the money?
27. Which are the main Romanian stock markets?
28. Which are the main Romanian companies indexed on the Romanian stock markets?

29. “One must choose, in life, between making money and spending it. There's no time to do
both”. (Edouard Bourdet)
30. “The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society”. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
31. “If a man has money, it is usually a sign, too, that he knows how to take care of it; don't
imagine his money is easy to get simply because he has plenty of it”. (Edgar Watson Howe)
32. “The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket”. (Kin
Hubbard)
33. “Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get
more”. (Charles Dickens)
34. “Markets are constantly in a state of uncertainty and flux and money is made by discounting
the obvious and betting on the unexpected”. (George Soros)
35. “The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy and the time of maximum
optimism is the best time to sell”. (John Templeton)
36. “It's not whether you're right or wrong that's important, but how much money you make
when you're right and how much you lose when you're wrong”. (George Soros)
37. “The stock market is filled with individuals who know the price of everything, but the value
of nothing”. (Philip Fisher)
38. “The only time to buy stock is on a day with no "y" in it”. (Warren Buffett)
39. “Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust”. (Oliver Wendell Holmes)
40. “Sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make”. (Donald Trump)

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C. INSURANCE

41. What are the main types of insurance you may or not need?
42. How would you describe the Romanian insurance market in a few words? (main companies,
main types of services offered, the success of the market in persuading the population etc.)
43. What are the differences between buying life insurance and setting up a savings account?
44. What qualities does an insurance agent or broker need?
45. What is the general attitude in Romania towards insurance?
46. Which types of insurance are more suitable for the young population? What about middle-
aged and old people?
47. Do you think natural hazard insurance should be mandatory?
48. What is your opinion on home insurance? What is its status in Romania?
49. Which are the main players on the Romanian insurance market and what is their market
share?
50. What is casualty insurance? Give examples of casualty insurance services from the
Romanian insurance market.

51. “There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance
salesman?” (Woody Allen)
52. “Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.” (Ronald Reagan)
53. “What the insurance companies have done is to reverse the business so that the public at
large insures the insurance companies” (Gerry Spence)
54. “People believe in their ability to control reality by purely material means… airline insurance
replaces the fear of death with the comforting prospect of cash”. (Cecil Beaton)
55. “There is a special provision on all insurance policies, which means, roughly, that you cannot
be insured for the accidents that are most likely to happen to you”. (Alan Coren)
56. “I detest life insurance agents: they always argue I shall some day die, which is not so”.
(Stephen Leacock)
57. “The chief beneficiary of life insurance policies for young, single people is the life insurance
agent”. (Wes Smith)
58. “Insurance: an ingenious modern game of chance in which the player (the individual) is
permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the Man who keeps the table
(God)”. (Ambrose Bierce)
59. “Fun is like life insurance: the older you get, the more it costs”. (Kin Hubbard)
60. The insurance industry communicates through codes and check-off boxes. If there is no code
for you, you do not exist”. (Jack Anderson)