survey to measure the financial literacy of micro, small and medium enterprises, as part of an international project coordinated by the oecd for the italian presidency of the g20, within the global partnership for financial inclusion. allow me to briefly recall the topics that will be discussed in today ’ s workshop today we will have an opportunity to discuss a wide range of topics that are relevant not only to long - term investment but also to the unprecedented health crisis we are experiencing. the role of non - bank financial intermediation ( the so - called nbfi sector ) has become increasingly important since the great financial crisis, also because of a prolonged phase of deleveraging in the banking sector. this is a topic that will be touched on today and has been at the forefront of discussions that are currently taking place in the major international regulatory policy fora. within the nbfi sector, investment funds and insurance companies represent a vital source of finance for non - financial corporations ( both equity and debt ). the stability of these corporations ’ financing sources is, in turn, a pre - requisite for their undertaking of investments, especially in activities such as research and innovation that have the potential to generate high growth. therefore, a long - term orientation of investment funds and insurance companies is essential to guarantee such stability. the covid - 19 crisis and the associated episodes of financial turbulence, especially those experienced in march 2020 with the so - called “ dash - for - cash ” episode, has revealed significant fragilities in the nbfi sector. spikes in volatility and illiquidity, whose effect can be significantly amplified by excessive leverage and liquidity mismatches, can quickly disrupt the provision of non - bank finance to the corporate sector and to the real economy. central banks and governments intervened promptly after the march 2020 episode in order to avoid wide scale economic damage and undesired consequences for both price and financial 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches stability. but central bank and public support cannot, and should not, be taken for granted : we must ensure that the nbfi sector becomes more resilient in its own right, independently of any support. to this end, international authorities are already working, under the leadership provided by the fsb, on building a macro - prudential framework to strengthen the nbfi sector ’ s resilience to shocks. the recent archegos episode is just the latest example of how urgent it has become to reach this objective.

such as aligning executive compensation with long - term performance and explicitly asking boards of directors to oversee long - term strategies. many investors now embrace environmental, social and governance ( esg ) criteria, which naturally leads them to focus on long - term sustainable returns. the bank of italy has undertaken several initiatives to favour a long - term sustainable approach to finance in 2019 the bank of italy integrated esg factors into the management of its equity portfolio, not only to meet its social responsibility goals but also to lead investors by example. 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches we ran a backward test over a ten - year horizon before implementing the new strategy and found that the new portfolio would have had both higher returns and lower volatility than the previous one. these findings, confirmed by several studies, may reflect the fact that the sustainability assessment introduces a forward - looking long - term element in otherwise predominantly backward - looking financial models. furthermore, companies that adopt good esg practices appear to have a competitive advantage resulting from innovation and lower operational, legal and reputational risks. we have also applied sustainability criteria to the management of our foreign reserves. in 2019, we used an external fund managed by the bis to invest in green bonds denominated in us dollars. later on, we started to manage green bonds in - house and we assigned an esg benchmark to the managers of our us dollar - denominated corporate bond portfolio. we also apply esg criteria to ourinternally managed euro - denominated corporate bond portfolio and are implementing low - carbon investments for the bank of italy ’ s pension fund. the bank of italy has also promoted several initiatives in the field of financial education. short - termism does not only affect firms and professional money managers. we all have cognitive and behavioural biases that sometimes induce us to make poor decisions. one common bias is to be much more oriented to the present than to the future, and therefore to make choices that favour the short - term over the medium - and long - term horizon. another tendency is to be overconfident, which sometimes leads us not to consults experts ( for example, professional financial advisors ) when instead we should. the bank of italy has launched financial education initiatives to combat these biases : we participated in pilot projects to bring financial education to schools and we conducted the survey on the financial literacy of italian adults, looking at three factors : knowledge, behaviour and savers ’ attitudes. in 2021, we started a new