Money and Banking

1
Money and Banking
2
Forms of Money

• Barter exchanging one product for another
• Gold and silver minted into coins
• Paper money initially used as receipts for
  silver and gold

3
Characteristics of Money

• Money has to be
• Portable
• easy to carry
• Valuable
• acceptable in exchange for goods and services
• Scarce
• be in short supply
• Divisible
• capable of being broken down into small
  denominations
• Durable
• last a long time

4
Forms of Money Today

• Notes and coins
• Cheques
• Credit cards
• Debit cards

5
The Euro

• The official currency of the Eurozone (17 of the
  27 members of the EU)
• Second most traded currency in the world
• Used in
• Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland,
  France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy,
  Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal,
  Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain

6
Advantages of the Euro

• Lower interest rates
• Easy to make price comparisons across the
  Eurozone
• Reduced business costs
• no bank charges on foreign currency
  transactions, exchange rates risks will be
  eliminated
• Increased tourism
• no currency conversion will be required for
  travel within the Eurozone

7
Saving and Investing

• Saving means not spending your money
• Investing means putting your money where it will
  earn interest

8
Reasons for saving/ investing

• Future purchases
• Unforeseen events
• Childrens education
• Income for the future
• Holidays

9
Factors to be considered before deciding where to
invest

• Safety
• Interest
• Liquidity
• Tax
• Future benefits
• Convenience

10
Where to invest

• An Post
• Credit Unions

• Building Societies
• Banks