the tendency to over - weight the present, at the expense of the future, is itself increased by financial stress. the more cash - strapped people feel, the more prone they are to taking decisions that make the situation worse. financial distress isn ’ t just the partial result of wanting things sooner rather than later : according to mullainathan and shafir it can also be the cause of it. the result can be what the authors describe as a “ scarcity trap ”. 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. one of the things economists like to focus on is return on investment. for the modest investment the bank has made to develop econome - £80, 000 - we hope to reach over 130, 000 young people directly by 2020, with a multiplier effect through word of mouth and social media. and we know that our efforts will complement and reinforce those of the pshe association, young money, economist educational foundation, nowteach, speakers for schools and many other initiatives that are improving mathematical and

across 28 countries. 7 given that, it would be an odd approach to follow outside the eu. and few non - eu countries have. indeed, even as a member of the eu, the uk has taken the second, very different, approach. by tasking us with promoting a financial system that serves households and businesses in bad times as well as good, it overlaid eu rules with an outcome to be pursued. see speech by sam woods ( may 2019 ) : ‘ stylish regulation ‘. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and that outcome is what the uk parliament holds us to account for delivering, even as times change. that has given us the freedom and responsibility to move regulation with the times ; to be agile. it ’ s a responsibility we take seriously. brexit nowhere has that been more obvious than brexit. on june 24th 2016, we started contingency planning for a ‘ no - deal ’ brexit. with our focus on making sure finance can serve the wider economy, our work has had two elements. first, checking that, whatever economic disruption arises as we leave the eu, major banks have the capacity to keep lending through it. we know from our stress tests that banks can withstand an economic scenario for the uk that is worse than the financial crisis. that stress test scenario encompasses even a brexit scenario based on the very worst case – ‘ disorderly ’ – assumptions, including : severe disruption at the border, acute economic uncertainty and financial market instability, and sharp increases in inflation requiring interest rates to rise. on that basis, we ’ ve been able to judge the core of the uk banking system to be able to continue to serve through brexit, whatever form brexit takes. the second element of our work has been to ensure that households and businesses using services from eu financial companies can continue to draw on those services after brexit. 70 branches of eea banks operate in the uk and provide services to both eu and uk end users. uk households and businesses hold 16 million insurance policies with eu insurers. 8 uk investors invest in funds based in the eu. and clearing houses based in the uk sit at the centre of eu and global derivatives markets, helping the financial system to manage and distribute risks. that ’ s why the bank, the government and the fca have put in place measures – temporary permissions regimes - to ensure that uk households