With the rise of consumerism, the need to create informed consumers is even more important. As the financial sector continues to rapidly evolve, offering sophisticated products and services to cater for greater and more diverse needs, consumers need to become even more financially savvy. While the consumer has an important responsibility to become more informed, financial service providers, the regulators and the authorities have an important role to provide the enabling and conducive environment that nurtures consumer empowerment. Indeed, consumer empowerment begins with financial awareness and consumer education. This in part can be achieved through greater disclosure and by  BIS Review 129/2007  1  increasing the education outreach to consumers thereby enhancing their ability to make informed financial decisions. Ladies and gentlemen, This exhibition aims to provide an enabling platform for consumer empowerment. MYFex2007 is a conscious effort to raise financial awareness by bringing together the various entities in the financial system that includes the industry, regulators and other agencies that provide information, the avenues for redress and financial advice with the aim of creating financially informed consumers. In essence, this one stop centre creates a comprehensive opportunity for consumers to improve their financial literacy and for the financial players to engage the consumers. An important thrust of our policies at the Central Bank is financial inclusion. This is to ensure that every economic activity, geographical region and segments of society have access to financial services thereby promoting a more balanced growth.

Although this element of the calibration was deemed to have been done once and for all, just for the purpose of calculating an additional capital cushion above the objective of 9%, the market considered the risk that it might be repeated in other circumstances. This created a powerful disincentive to hold, let alone acquire, such debt, since banks felt they could be penalized in the future. Banks are major actors on the sovereign bond markets and it is certainly no coincidence that liquidity dried up and spreads went up in most markets in the days following that decision. Policy responses Cumulative and destabilizing dynamics need to be addressed by a conjunction of complementary actions. First, it is essential to stabilize European bond markets. We have to recognize that the necessary degree of fiscal adjustment is heavily dependent on the level of market confidence. This has been well recognized by France with the recent EUR 18 billion consolidation package for this year and 2012, consisting notably of tax benefit reductions, VAT increases and an acceleration of the pension reform. But we also know that markets react positively, if only progressively, to credible fiscal consolidation and financial reform. Witness the success in Ireland where 10-year spreads have gone down from 14% in July to around 8% recently. Second, we should try and delink bank and sovereign risk. In the future, this may call for more structural solutions, with deposit insurance and crisis resolution mechanisms firmly established at the euro area level.