Savings account

Saving accounts (UK: savings accounts) are accounts maintained by retail financial institutions that pay interest but cannot be used directly as money in the narrow sense of a medium of exchange (for example, by writing a cheque). These accounts let customers set aside a portion of their liquid assets while earning a monetary return. For the bank, money in a savings account may not be callable immediately and, in some jurisdictions, does not incur a reserve requirement. Cash in the bank's vaults may thus be used, for example, to fund interest-paying loans.

The other major types of deposit account are the transactional account (usually known as a "checking" (US) or "current" (UK) account), money market account and time deposit.

Regulations

In the United States, under Regulation D, 12 (CFR) §204.2(d)(2), the term "savings deposit" includes a deposit or an account that meets the requirements of Sec. 204.2(d)(1) and from under the terms of the deposit contract or by practice of the depository institution, the depositor is permitted to make up to six pre-authorized transfers or withdrawals per month or a statement cycle of at least four weeks. There is no regulation limiting number of deposits into the account.

Current account

In economics, a country's current account is one of the two components of its balance of payments, the other being the capital account (sometimes called the financial account). The current account consists of the balance of trade, net primary income or factor income (earnings on foreign investments minus payments made to foreign investors) and net cash transfers, that have taken place over a given period of time. The current account balance is one of two major measures of a country's foreign trade (the other being the net capital outflow). A current account surplus indicates that the value of a country's net foreign assets (i.e. assets less liabilities) grew over the period in question, and a current account deficit indicates that it shrank. Both government and private payments are included in the calculation. It is called the current account because goods and services are generally consumed in the current period.

Overview

A country's balance of trade is the net or difference between the country's exports of goods and services and its imports of goods and services, ignoring all financial transfers, investments and other components, over a given period of time. A country is said to have a trade surplus if its exports exceed its imports, and a trade deficit if its imports exceed its exports.

Kal Penn

Kal Penn (born Kalpen Suresh Modi; April 23, 1977) is an American actor, producer, and civil servant.

As an actor, he is known for his role portraying Dr. Lawrence Kutner on the television program House, as well as the character Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the critically acclaimed film, The Namesake. Additionally, Penn has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer.

On April 8, 2009, it was announced that Penn would join the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. This necessitated that his TV character, Lawrence Kutner, be written out of House. Penn resigned his post as Barack Obama's Associate Director of Public Engagement on June 1, 2010, for a brief return to his acting career. He filmed the third installment of the Harold & Kumar series, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, and subsequently returned to the White House Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director. In July 2011, he again left the White House to accept a role in the hit television series How I Met Your Mother.