STUDENTS from Eltham College have gained a place in the area final of a banking competition.

The team, from the college in Grove Park Road, won their regional heat of the Bank of England/Times Interest rate Challenge.

Entitled Target 2 Point 5 it gave the team Joe Robbins, Harshid Patel, Vipul Patel and Kevin Kular the chance to act as the banks monetary policy committee.

This involved assessing economic conditions and telling panels of judges the level of interest needed to achieve the Governments inflation target of 2.5 per cent.

Head of economics and business studies, Brad McQueen, said: Given the high quality of presentations and analysis, we consider this an excellent result and are looking forward to the next stage of the competition.

The area final will be held next month .