German banks

I had listened one podcast:

"German banks" at BBC World Service, broadcast on 2 Jul 2009

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p003jd5j/Business_Daily_German_banks/

I had an aim to self-assess what skills do I have to listening tasks, especially how I can understand the authentic speech. 
Well, I have to admit that I still find some difficulties in listening tasks. First of all I want to say that the hardest situation is when there are many annoying voices and sounds on the background because they has drawn my attention away from the general conversation. The rate of podcast presenter's speech wasn't too fast as well as the rate of other speeches. It was suitable "to catch" the words. So it wasn’t difficult to understand the meaning of the whole conversation and it was also very interesting and useful to listen to people’s accents. I needed to listen to podcast not once, but I had listened for two times not the whole conversation. 
Now I want to say some words about the theme of this podcast. It’s about the consequences of the economic crisis. It tells us that nobody is separated from the global financial system. And diverse German banks choose different behavior in order to survive. All banks have to learn to serve the region and the customers.
This podcast helped me to realize how well I am ready at this moment to pass my English exam. So I can say that I have to learn new words and work on my vocabulary.