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Bus Part A2P ReadingBank U5

This document discusses how data has become a valuable resource for businesses. It explains that companies like Facebook and Google provide free services and high revenues by collecting user data through activities like internet searches and social media posts. This data is then used to provide personalized ads. In the future, other industries like finance may also use extensive data from various sources to offer services like lending money through apps instead of banks by assessing risk levels based on artificial intelligence analysis of user data. While privacy is a concern, most users are willing to share their personal information in exchange for free services and targeted ads.

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Satoru Nakata
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89 views

Bus Part A2P ReadingBank U5

This document discusses how data has become a valuable resource for businesses. It explains that companies like Facebook and Google provide free services and high revenues by collecting user data through activities like internet searches and social media posts. This data is then used to provide personalized ads. In the future, other industries like finance may also use extensive data from various sources to offer services like lending money through apps instead of banks by assessing risk levels based on artificial intelligence analysis of user data. While privacy is a concern, most users are willing to share their personal information in exchange for free services and targeted ads.

Uploaded by

Satoru Nakata
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Reading bank

Unit 5
1 Match the words (1–5) with their definitions (a–e).
1 data a money that a company receives
2 revenues b an amount of money that you borrow
3 loan c information that a computer or a human can use
4 interest d a measurement of how good someone or something is
5 rating e the extra money you must pay back (in addition to what you borrow)

2 Complete the paragraph using words 1–5 from Exercise 1.

If you want to borrow money, for example to buy a car or get a mortgage, you go to
a bank and ask for a 1 . You then make monthly repayments
to the bank until you pay back everything. Of course, the bank will also charge you
2
, so you pay back more than you borrow. This extra money
that the bank receives is an important part of their 3 and helps
them to be successful as a business. Does the bank lend to everyone? Of course not. It
depends on your credit 4 , which is a measurement of how good
you have been with money in the past. To give a fair measurement, the bank will use
all sorts of 5 such as your salary, your payment history for past
loans, how much money you owe at the moment, etc.

3 Read the article quickly and decide if these statements are true (T) or false (F).
1 Facebook and Google use data from your internet activity to help advertisers give you
personalised ads. But they don’t collect every word you type – it would be too complicated as
there are so many words.
2 At the moment, we get loans from banks. In the future, we might get loans in very different ways.
3 Most people don’t worry about how their data is used. They are happy to get a free service and
ads that are interesting to them.

4 Find the underlined words in the article that match these definitions.
1 a short description that gives the main details about a person
2 a short phrase that is easy to remember and is used in advertising or politics
3 the freedom to do things without other people knowing
4 the person who gives you a loan
5 the way a situation is developing or changing
6 to believe that someone is good and honest

5 Match the sentence halves.


1 Many successful companies have a business a of risk using data.
2 Google and Baidu have powerful search b a negative.
3 Companies can pay for data and then give you c personalised ads.
4 Different lenders might offer a different rate of d model based on data.
5 Artificial intelligence would calculate the level e interest.
6 Most people see personalised ads as a bonus, not f engines.

6 In each sentence, fill one gap (a or b) with will and leave the other gap empty.
1 If you a search for ’Paris hotels’ on Google, then for many days after you b
get ads for hotels in Paris when you use the internet.
2 In the future, fintech a use artificial intelligence and huge amounts of data – if the
ideas in the article b happen.
3 If you a ask me, no one really knows what b happen in the future.
4 How a
regular banks continue to make a profit if they b make fewer loans?

Business Partner A2+ © Pearson Education 2019 1


Reading bank

It’s the data, stupid.


The 1992 U.S. presidential campaign was won by candidate Bill Clinton, who had
the slogan ’It’s the economy, stupid.’ These days, in modern business, ’It’s the data,
stupid.’
The most successful companies in the world have a business model based on data.
5 Facebook and WeChat, for example, give you a service that’s impossible not to like
– the ability to connect and share with friends and family. The service is free, but
these companies know your personal profile, your interests and all the words in
your posts. Advertisers pay them for this data. Google and Baidu offer powerful
search engines, and it’s hard to imagine life without them. Again, their services are
10 completely free, but the companies have very high revenues. Every word you type
into the search engine is recorded, and this means that companies can pay for that
data and then give you personalised ads at the top of your search results.
This trend to put data at the heart of business is going to grow and grow. Let’s take
the example of finance, with ’fintech’ (financial technology) one of the hottest new
15 industries. In the future, to get a loan to buy a new car, you might use fintech rather
than a regular bank. A fintech app could use data to find people all over the world
who can lend you money, perhaps at different rates of interest. How would the
lender trust you to repay? Easy. Artificial intelligence would calculate the level of
risk using data. This data would come from your bank of course, but might also
20 come from unusual places like your star rating on eBay, your career history on
LinkedIn, the kind of people you have as connections on social media, etc.
Data, about you, is one of the world’s most precious resources, perhaps more
important than oil, diamonds or gold. And yes, privacy may be an issue, but users
of websites and apps are happy to exchange their personal data for the free service
25 they get. In fact, many see the personalised ads as a bonus, not a negative.

Business Partner A2+ © Pearson Education 2019 2

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