financial goal and presents information on coverdell education savings accounts, u. s. savings bonds, and qualified tuition programs as types of savings vehicles for achieving that goal. programs on estate planning and retirement are offered, as well as seminars on financial planning and advanced investment. many of these programs are geared to those employees who have been in the workforce for many years. however, understanding that many of our young people don ’ t receive formal course work in financial matters, we designed a program that is more meaningful to new professionals. this program, which is designed for those young people just entering the workforce, discusses the importance of starting to save at a young age, homeownership, advanced education, and avoiding debt. workplace education benefits both the employer and employee. for the employee, more knowledge, one hopes, will result in better financial decisions and overall financial well - being. employees who are taking maximum advantage of the benefits available to them will more likely have greater job satisfaction, which may result in lower turnover. for the employer, research studies have shown that employees who are financially healthy are more productive. they are absent less often, spend less time at the workplace dealing with financial crises, and earn higher job performance ratings. we commend the commission for recognizing workplace education as an integral component in formulating a national financial education strategy.

us to move forward. in general, we were pleased to see that qis4 showed that progress is being made toward developing more risk - sensitive capital measures. in fact, it was quite interesting to see the range of practice employed by institutions in developing their qis4 estimates. as noted, a fair portion of the dispersion among institutions stemmed from their assignment of risk parameters, with differences in portfolio composition playing some role. the institutions participating in qis4 use a variety of credit - rating systems. rating philosophy is an area in which rating systems can differ, with some focused more on “ through the cycle ” ratings, and others on “ point in time ” ratings. choices made in rating philosophy can have an impact on how assessments of risk translate into required capital. additionally, it is quite interesting to see institutions continually working to upgrade their rating systems and incorporate innovations where possible ; for example, many systems have recently been enhanced for greater granularity. so although work remains, we believe real strides are being made. in analyzing institutions ’ estimates of default probabilities, we saw that some firms used internal data, others external data, and some a combination of data sources. we also saw that differences in the use of reference data could affect capital outcomes. similar results were seen with estimates of loss given default, as firms again used both internal and external data. furthermore, we saw significant differences across banks in the discounting of recoveries, assumptions for workout costs, methods for incorporating downturn conditions ( or lack thereof ), and the treatment of collateral. these differences appear to have had significant effects on banks ’ loss given default estimates and to have contributed to the dispersion in required capital levels across firms. so what does it mean that institutions estimated different parameters for similar exposures? it could mean that not all practices are entirely robust or producing accurate results - - understandable given that qis4 was a done on a “ best efforts ” basis without close supervisory oversight, that the u. s. agencies need to issue their proposals, and that banks are still in the process of implementation. differences in parameter estimates could also mean that institutions have varying interpretations of risks or methods to estimate those risks - - all of which could be perfectly acceptable. in fact, today we see different interpretations and assessment of risks in financial markets as counterparties assume different probabilities of default, estimates of loss, or forecasts of prices. as you know, u. s. supervisors are still developing their