a credit institution cannot execute interbank payments or if card payments cannot be verified or transmitted. so basically, the backup system takes over the basic banking services for a bank whose operations are critically damaged. you could consider this a restoration platform with basic payment functions. this is not to be confused with a bank under resolution, as the credit institution concerned is still financially sound, and its customer accounts and functions would be migrated back to it as soon as it is operationally viable. the responsibility for our national emergency interbank payment scheme rests with the bank of finland. this is a contingency arrangement that secures interbank payments if the emergency account system has to be activated or if finland temporarily loses its data connections to the rest of the world. 4 / 6 bis - central bankers'speeches although the legislative changes and the solutions selected were prepared at extremely short notice, the solutions were based on analysis work completed over a much longer period. the technical capabilities were introduced soon after the legislation. for the interbank component, we decided to have a staggered approach to the process : quickly introduce a basic entry - level model, to be fully tested, improved and automatised only afterwards. this is not our normal way of adopting a new piece of infrastructure, but last year, with a war in europe, we felt this necessary. and i must add that practically everybody in finland understood the severity of the changes in our threat landscape. therefore, even though the task was sometimes technically demanding and came with extra costs, basically all financial sector participants accepted the facts and went along with the common goal. any decision to activate the new national emergency account system needs to be taken by the finnish government. the resolution authority was chosen to maintain the emergency account system primarily because finnish banks were already frequently providing the authority, for deposit insurance purposes, with relevant information on retail accounts. this minimised the need to build new communication channels, which can be very time consuming. the resolution authority was allowed to use external service providers to build and maintain the backup solutions. and naturally other authorities, especially the bank of finland, lent their expertise to these colleagues. it was clear to us from the beginning that the bank of finland had to be the one to provide and operate the backup system for interbank credit transfers. this is a continuation of our normal tasks – we are the ones that operate target2 in finland. this is also why we, the bank of finland, decide independently on the activation of this part of the emergency backup systems.

, human capital accumulation, together with high spending on research and development, has fostered innovation. another characteristic strength of the nordic countries has been their general willingness and ability to adapt to changing circumstances. undoubtedly, this partly reflects their relatively small size, but it seems that education has in several ways smoothed the process of adjustment. • first, a well - educated electorate has underpinned political systems which have been able to produce pragmatic policies that have helped in adapting to a rapidly changing world. according to the economist intelligence unit ’ s democracy index, the nordic countries ( plus the netherlands, which is often considered a nordic model country ) are the most democratic countries in the world. 5 • second, education has enabled these countries to tap into the full pool of human potential and has contributed to the absence of rigid social classes. reflecting this, the nordic countries are among the most mobile societies in term of intergenerational income mobility. 6 the finnish experience with comprehensive school reform suggests that ensuring a sound basic education for the entire population promotes social mobility by creating an equality of opportunity. 7 a society with a well - educated labour force will also be able to adjust to a changing environment. finally, in this “ information age ”, we need to recognize the crucial role of information. information technology, e. g., as measured by the degree of " wiredness " and density of mobile phones, helps in global competition. however, even more important is the free competition of ideas and ideologies. here relevant metrics include the freedom of the press see e. g., oecd ( 2007 ), education at a glance, paris. see the world in 2007, the economist intelligence unit ’ s http : / / www. economist. com / media / pdf / democracy _ index _ 2007 _ v3. pdf. see e. g., generational income mobility in north america and europe, edited by miles corak, cambridge university press, november 2004. pekkarinen, t., uusitalo, r. and pekkala, s. ( 2006 ), " education policy and intergenerational income mobility : evidence from the finnish comprehensive school reform, the institute for study of labor ( iza ) discussion paper no. 2204. index of democracy. or newspaper circulation per capita – both measures that place the nordic model countries near the top in global rankings. 8 i would like to say a few more words about free competition of ideas and