Fourthly, I would like to highlight that financial education, over time, improves the living standard in the long run, including retirement age. In a recent analysis, the essential reason why an individual needs to amplify his financial literacy is that this investment will help him to reach his money management objectives. Although personal objectives may vary from an individual to another, on financial education point of view, improvement of society’s living standard is guaranteed and confidence for the future is boosted. Financially literate individuals, are capable to make healthy financial plans, from an early stage of their career. Their knowledge enables them to plan their finances for retirement, children’s education and accumulation of financial assets. These individual behaviours, seemingly irrelevant, bring about great benefits in the national perspective. Fifth, I would like to underline that financial education is a long-term process, extended over time, and that the presence of specialised institutions is indispensable. Although in financial crisis individuals incur large damage, they continue to be involved in future crisis. The number of individuals, who are familiar with interest rates they either receive or pay in financial transactions, remains low. The same may be said about investment strategies, financial risk identification and assessment, and other elementary money management concepts. Many people do not think in financial terms and do not perceive accurately profits and costs resulting from bank loan use, or wealth-related effects originating from home ownership and other similar long-term assets.

That is why I consider this conference as highly important. The Bank of Albania has devoted constant attention to financial education. Our education agenda is integral and comprehensive both in terms of geography and age groups, full of interactive elements and modern communication methodology. Furthermore, I would like to refer to some of the elements that constitute the philosophical grounds of our educational work. BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  First, I would like to recall that financial welfare is inextricably related with the country’s economic progress. It has been already proven that individual’s welfare is proportionate to economic activity and prices of financial assets. The cause-effect relation is true on both directions. Our economy and financial institutions are strong when revenues and wealth grow. Financially healthy individuals are inclined to increase their consumption and, therefore, boost their spending, consequently pushing the economy forward. Moreover, financially successful people boost lending potential by channelling their savings into deposits. Therefore, they are in a position to have access in crediting by the banking system, giving life to new businesses which, in turn, provide higher employment and welfare. To most of the people, having a job and a salary or estate is essential to personal financial welfare. However, the fact that you may have a job, or a salary does not imply that you automatically have the capacity to make wise decisions on effective money utilisation. This is the point where our relation with financial education is subjected to the test of the truth. Is this test passed?