These issues take on special importance in the context of the potential increase in long-term saving associated with population ageing. In any event, in recent years companies have increasingly turned to European capital markets for finance. This trend towards financial disintermediation is explained by factors such as the ECB's corporate debt purchase programme, along with more permanent factors such as the introduction of new international banking regulation in response to the financial crisis. The primary aim of the regulatory reform is to foster financial stability by strengthening banks’ resilience to future shocks, but it has the side-effect of creating incentives to move typical bank services outside the reach of the sector’s safety nets. Indeed, various analytical studies –including the annual FSB non-banking financial intermediation monitoring reports– suggest that fund managers’ business has grown substantially over the past decade. Moreover, this growth has been observed particularly in the case of open-ended funds that offer their unit-holders daily reimbursements and which invest in assets that are somewhat illiquid or have long maturities. In other words, they perform activities that share the need to manage some of the risks characteristic of typical banking business, such as maturity transformation, leverage or liquidity risk. I therefore feel international financial regulation needs to follow the principle that activities with similar risks should be subject to similar supervision and regulation. And in the supervision and regulation of all entities and activities, the risks they pose to the financial system, particularly those of systemic importance, must be taken into account.

I don’t think we have the evidence to say that better financial education is enough to escape such a trap. But it surely can’t hurt. A recent study using data from the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, found that rates of financial literacy – defined as the ability to answer relatively straightforward financial questions4 – were lower here than in other advanced economies. According to a recent, UK-specific survey by a private-sector firm, less than half of adults and barely a third of teenagers actually know what an interest rate is. And we also know that the less financially literate tend to face higher debt costs than others and more often face financial distress.5 If financial education can make any difference at all to these problems we have a duty to try and improve it. Conclusion The Bank of England has a direct interest in improving and broadening the teaching of economics. There’s an appetite for it. According to a recent poll, three quarters of the public believe economics should be taught in schools.6 Yet only around a third of schools offer children the option to study economics from the age of 14.7 We hope our online teaching materials will help fill some of the gap. However, we also hope that our “EconoME” package can help with financial literacy. I think economics is fascinating and very valuable. But you don’t need to be an economist to understand the basics of personal finance and their importance for people’s lives.