Become a Banking & Finance pro in English!

If you’re stuck trying to work out the best method to learn English vocabulary, we’re here to lend a helping hand. Learning new vocabulary is an essential part of any decent learning method, whether you’re following a textbook, taking classes, or using an online learning platform, but there are ways to make enriching your vocabulary a priority in your language learning quest.

Go classic: post its

When your mission is to learn English vocabulary, one of our best pieces of advice is to integrate new words into every aspect of your life – and we mean this literally! One of the best ways to on board tricky finance vocabulary is to be confronted with it in the bathroom mirror, on the fridge, and on the door.

Not only is seeing and interacting with new words an effective way of learning English finance vocabulary quickly, but it’s also a cheap solution. Buying a pack of post and sticking them around your apartment is one of the simplest solutions we can think of.

Go modern: why not learn English online?

One of the best ways to learn English vocabulary is without a doubt taking your learning online. Signing up to an e-learning platform is certainly the most effective way of introducing some fun into your English studies – and making learning fun is a great way of making sure new vocabulary sticks in your mind.

The world of banking and finance is a huge field, but if you focus your attention on onboarding the essentials in finance vocabulary, you can quickly crack the surface.

Choosing to learn English online will mean you can break the long list of banking and finance vocabulary into bitesize topics. Let’s look at two example banking and finance vocabulary topics and see how many terms you recognize...

Money and currencies

To move in the world of money, you need to know how to talk about it. Here are some essential terms in finance vocabulary:

• unit of account ​- a measurement for value
• store of value - an asset that is able to avoid depreciation over a long period of time
• currency ​- the money that is used in a particular country
• commodities​ - substances or products that can be traded, bought or sold
• depreciation​ - devaluation
• intrinsic​ - belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing
• fare​ – succeed

Monetary policy

If you delve a little deeper into banking and finance vocabulary, you’ll need some specialized terms like these ones:

• central bank - an institution which conducts a nation’s monetary policy and regulates its banking system
• Securities and Exchange Commission - (SEC) an independent federal government agency that regulates the securities exchanges on which stocks, bonds, and other securities are traded
• a lot on their plate - to have many things to deal with
• open market operations - when the Fed buys and sells primarily government bonds in order to regulate the supply of money that is on reserve in U.S. banks, and therefore available to loan out to businesses and consumers
• discount rate - the interest rate charged to the commercial banks and other financial institutions for the loans they take from the Federal Reserve
• reserve requirement - the amount of money the Federal Reserve requires its member banks to store in its vaults overnight

You can learn vocabulary like this with study sheets and exercises when you learn English online with GlobalExam.

When you sign up to learn English with GlobalExam, you’ll unlock access to a whole host of excellent grammar and vocabulary resources. Our learning materials are divided into four main areas, to suit your personal objectives:

• Improve your industry skills: focusing on industry-specific skills, such as building construction, cyber security, health and pharma,tourism, ...
• Boost your career: focusing on career-specific skills, such as marketing, communication, human resources, sales, purchasing, CSM or management
• Boost your general skills: focusing on specific skills, such as negotiation, write a professional email, manage a project,manage interculturality, recruitment, answer the phone, travelling in business, conducting a meeting or greeting a client
• Boost your level: improving your level across the board with vocabulary list and grammar sheets

If you’re looking to target banking and finance vocabulary, you can do exactly that on GlobalExam. Each of these four areas is made up of individual units and “situations” that introduce learners to new vocabulary and grammar in realistic scenarios. When you learn with us, there’s no long list of 300 finance vocabulary terms to learn in one go!

Follow our banking and finance vocabulary pathway

When you log onto GlobalExam, head to “Improve my industry skills” to unlock our specialized banking and finance vocabulary module. This part of the platform is especially designed to help you understand the world of banking and finance in English, from retail banks to financial institutions, covering everything from everyday banking language to talking about global economies.

The banking and finance vocabulary pathway will help you to:

• Learn and retain finance vocabulary;
• Understand texts and conversations pertaining to finance and banking.

This specialized pathway breaks down the essentials in banking and finance vocabulary into eight hours of targeted learning, through six modules and 25 “situations” designed to put you into realistic business scenarios. The six modules include:

• An overview and introduction of finance and banking (four situations);
• Banking (four situations);
• Trading and brokerage (five situations);
• Creating value together (four situations);
• Market functions (four situations);
• Financial markets and institutions (five situations).

Each lesson (or “situation”) confronts you, the learner, with a real-life situation in the banking and finance world in order to help you learn English in a natural way, that will allow you to apply your knowledge to real scenarios in the industry or workplace. Let’s look at some examples.

Example situation: The Business of Banking

In this 20-minute situation, you will meet the main character, Ed, and his friend and business partner, Dan, as the two debate the benefits of investments and savings accounts. This situation is designed to introduce you to the language used by retail banks to describe their services, as well as to enable you to understand conversations about the benefits and risks of financial investments.

To complete the situation, you will need to absorb and make use of essential finance and banking vocabulary, such as:

• savings account - ​a bank account that lets you store your money securely while typically earning interest
• credit card - a card which lets you borrow money from a bank under the agreement that you’ll repay it by your bill’s due date
• debit card - a ​payment card that deducts money directly from a consumer's checking account

Example situation: All you need to know about PO

As you delve deeper into the pathway, you’ll be confronted with more challenging topics and the vocabulary needed to discuss them. As part of the Trading and Brokerage module, you will complete a situation on PO, otherwise known as public offering. Not sure what we’re talking about? This situation is for you!

The aim of this situation is for you to understand what a public offering is, why companies have them, and to understand the process behind it. Like most of our situations, you will have the opportunity to learn about this topic through various methods, including video comprehension, gap fill exercises, and questions.

Example situation: International financial institutions

As you progress towards the end of the pathway, the scope of the situations will widen to talk about banking and finance on a global scale. In this situation at international financial institutions, you will meet Russel, who speaks at a conference. This situation is designed to enhance your financial vocabulary in the field of conferences, institutions, and global economics, as well as hone your skills in crafting good oral presentations skills.

How many of the following finance vocabulary terms do you know?

• loan -  an amount of money borrowed from a bank or financial institution for a fee and charged interest rate on the amount depending on the duration of the loan. credit, mortgage, advance. 
• microloan - a very small credit usually for an individual or for small purchases.
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) - is a management notion for organizations to incorporate social and environmental matters in their business activities and relations with their stakeholders.

Learning online is a fantastic way to boost your English lexicon and improve your grammar, but we understand that using your skills and knowledge in real human interactions is still an important part of learning. That’s why we also offer virtual lessons to learn English online in a stimulating and interactive way. Our virtual lessons come in two forms:

• Individual sessions of thirty minutes
• Group sessions (maximum six people) of one hour

If studying online independently feels a little daunting to you, incorporating virtual lessons into your e-learning journey is an excellent way to keep yourself on track and stay accountable to your learning objectives. GlobalExam’s English teachers are all mother tongue English speakers with TESOL qualifications. Every lesson is well-prepared, offering targeted guidance on specific Business topics.

Are you ready to start learning English online? See you there!