effective financial education is a crucial life skill in order to make financial decisions consistent with personal and family needs. in today ’ s digital age, financial markets offer everybody easy access to a wide range of financial services and products. but digitalization is two - faced : it can emphasize some behavioral biases, such as short - termism and impatience, but could nudge people into specific virtuous action. the final balance will be positive only if consumers are financially literate. building a sound financial education is complex, as it requires a long - life approach on three challenging dimensions : knowledge, attitude, and behavior. financial education goes beyond than just providing information, it is meant to change those three dimensions, in order for people to achieve their financial well - being. best practices around the world show that experiential learning ( such as games, simulations and role plays ) helps acquire, retain and put in practice new information. since 2008 in our main program for students, “ educazione finanziaria a scuola ”, we have progressively moved from information to capability, fostering a value - driven approach to economic issues, stimulating the participants ’ interest by suggesting “ i need it because... ”. we have been using movies as a trigger for debating financial issues and behavioral biases. we have also introduced contests and prizes. our competition “ let ’ s design a banknote ” invites italian primary and secondary school students to design an imaginary banknote on a given theme ; for the current edition, the theme is “ money and emotions ”. the prize - winning classes receive an amount of money for their school. we will also contribute to the first edition of the italian economic and finance olympiad. adults are more challenging : they tend to acquire just the knowledge and skills they need for a specific purpose and their behavior tend to be well - rooted. furthermore, adults are an extremely heterogeneous population. for example, some immigrants grew up where saving food meant wasting it. thus the concept of saving must be explained to them with a special care. let me also add that ivass is now planning an exercise to measure insurance literacy, a still underexplored dimension of financial capability ; even if it is a novel concept, it could become an international benchmark. i would like to stress that, as international experience shows, single institutions cannot fill all the gaps : a nationally - coordinated approach to financial education is a key factor for success. financial education needs an interdisciplinary approach

incorporating cyclical factors in published accounts. i also applaud lord turner ’ s proposals for enhancing macroprudential analysis – that is, assessing the implications of macroeconomic trends for financial stability, the ability of the financial system to absorb or propagate macroeconomic shocks, and the interlinkages among financial firms. indeed, it is precisely in this area that we have the most to learn from the experience of this crisis. we need to think hard and carefully about how to put these lessons into practice in formulating policies that incorporate financial stability concerns into traditional macroeconomic policy levers as well as regulatory rules and approaches. many of these areas for action have an important international dimension. as we implement these new approaches, it is critical to maintain a level playing field internationally as far as possible. we must avoid a situation where national authorities are reluctant to impose tighter regulation for fear that this gives an advantage to banks in other countries. we need internationally consistent rules and standards to support sound international financial activity and mechanisms for supervisors to share information and coordinate supervision of large cross - border institutions. and we must better understand the systemic risks that never respect national borders, as we have repeatedly seen during the past 18 months. this means that we need more effective international cooperation. the fsf contributes to this cooperation by regularly bringing together senior officials responsible for setting financial policy at the national level along with international financial institutions and standard setters. our dialogue facilitates a common diagnosis of problems, a better understanding of how key policy responsibilities and fields of operation interact, and a more coherent and consistent approach to maintaining a stable and efficient financial system. fsf members share a determination to address the systemic problems that have been at the heart of the crisis and have engaged in an active collaborative effort over the past year and a half to develop and implement measures to strengthen the underpinnings of the financial system. a year ago we published our report on enhancing market and institutional resilience, which set out a plan of action for strengthening the system in such areas as prudential regulation, transparency, the role of credit rating agencies, and international cooperation in the supervision of large complex groups. we are also about to issue recommendations and principles in important additional areas : • on procyclicality, the fsf recommends actions that will dampen procyclicality in bank capital, establish more forward - looking loan loss provisions, and mitigate the adverse interaction between the build - up of leverage, maturity mismatching and fair