They should be expected to be responsible and active, searching for information and understanding the risk profile of products, especially those with a greater degree of complexity. With an approach based on these principles they will be able to take their decisions responsibly, assuming levels of debt that are reasonable, not only in the light of their sustainability at present, but also in the future. However, consumers must not only have access to information, they must also be able to assess it. Institutions must play a role in this respect, offering their customers the products that best suit their needs and informing and advising them accordingly. In addition, in recognition of the importance of raising the acumen of bank customers, the Banco de España is developing a project to educate, through the lnternet, the users of financial products and services. The project’s first phase will be available at the beginning of next year. Allow me, like every year, to conclude by referring to other aspects of the management of the Banco de España. As part of our ongoing effort to increase the transparency and improve the communication of the Bank’s activities, this year’s Annual Report includes an additional chapter on the management of the Banco de España in 2003. This chapter summarises the main tasks performed and the organisational changes made at the Banco de España. I should like to stress that the Banco de España has continued to press ahead with the reforms necessary to adapt the institution to its new challenges.

This will aim to ensure continuity with the aforementioned framework, as well as compatibility with the IAS, permitting a far-reaching and consistent reform of the current model. Accordingly, the new circular will assist institutions in complying with the IAS; it will select the most prudent options when the international standards propose more than one, so recognising the particularities of financial institutions; and, finally, by permitting a common accounting framework, it will prevent the choice of accounting options from being a factor that may distort competition. Allow me to end this review of the challenges facing financial institutions by pointing out that their responses must be supplemented by market discipline and by the action of financial-services consumers. In effect, market discipline is an essential supplement for supervisors; market participants, by rewarding those institutions that act appropriately, generate the necessary incentives for managers to behave prudently. Yet, for market discipline to be possible, market participants need to have the necessary information. This is why the promotion of transparency is of paramount importance, to ensure that institutions report information that is reliable and based on generally accepted valuation principles in a timely and opportune fashion. This qualitative and quantitative information must enable the results obtained by institutions, the risks they are assuming and the practices employed in their management and control to be assessed. Finally, in a non-zero-risk world, the action of consumers of financial products and servces is, as I have already mentioned, very important.