to improve financial literacy, across the board. among other things, financial education would help both individuals and firms establish sounder financial situations and reduce financial risks such as unnecessary exposure to exchange rate volatility. the bank of albania has been on the vanguard of financial education in albania and will continue to spearhead such efforts. albania needs also to develop further payment systems and improve access to finance for various segments of the society, such as small and medium - sized enterprises or the rural sector. the bank of albania has responsibly exercised its duties in the area of payment system development. in this regard, we : established, in 2015, the national payments system committee, to coordinate the work of all relevant public and private sector agencies ; compiled the draft law “ on payments services ”, which approximates the respective eu directive and paves the way for developing new payment products ; and, improved the technological infrastructure for payments, reducing therefore their costs. however, our work may not be considered as completely finished. lastly, albania should pay attention to the development of new financial market segments, such as capital markets and pension and investment funds. in this context, alignment of the legal and regulatory framework is of primary importance with a view to preventing the potential emergence of systemic risks or the possibility of regulatory arbitrage. * * * dear ladies and gentlemen, our agenda for the work that lies ahead of us is as complex as ambitious. its successful realisation will enable our economy to grow at a fast and steady pace, and will mark a step forward in our journey towards eu integration. on behalf of the bank of albania, let me affirm our readiness to rise to the challenge. i am also confident that today ’ s conference will provide a significant contribution to finding optimal solutions. hoping that you will find the conference and your stay in tirana both valuable and enjoyable, i wish the conference a great success! thank you for your attention! 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches

holders ought to neutralise fully any effect of increased leverage on the value of the firm. provided anglo - continental guano works v bell ( surveyor of taxes ) ( 1894 ) 3 tc 239. farmer ( surveyor of taxes ) v scottish north american trust, ltd ( 1912 ), ac 118. for example, the introduction of a separate corporate tax schedule in the uk in 1965 led for a time to the double taxation of equity. these investors account for perhaps half of the us equity market and two - thirds of the uk equity market. bis central bankers ’ speeches shareholders maximise firm value, and the world behaves according to mm, debtor discipline ought to defuse completely incentives to gear - up. figure 3 illustrates the point diagrammatically, showing payoffs to debt and equity. they are a mirror - image. the downside risk avoided by equity is assumed by debt and vice - versa for upside returns. in principle, then, combining debt and equity would lead to offsetting payoffs, neutralising risk - taking incentives. during the 19th century, debt appears to have played just this role. depositor flight and bank runs came thick and fast, operating as an effective disciplining device on shareholders and managers. that is why unlimited liability remained a prize asset until the end of the 19th century. this quasi - disciplining role of debt persisted up to the great depression. calomiris and mason ( 1997 ) find that debt and equity prices did a reasonable job of distinguishing good and bad banks during the chicago banking panic of 1932. indeed, they signalled distress fully six months prior to banks ’ failure. as the 20th century progressed, however, evidence of debt disciplining became patchier. studies in the 1980s typically failed to find balance sheet risk having a significant impact on banks ’ subordinated debt spreads ( gorton and santomero ( 1990 ) ). evidence from the 1990s was more encouraging ( flannery and sorescu ( 1996 ), morgan and stiroh ( 1999 ) ). but even then the link was weaker among larger banks, with little evidence of market prices influencing banks ’ risk decisions ( bliss and flannery ( 2002 ) ). nowhere was the ineffectiveness of debtor discipline better illustrated than in the run - up to the recent financial crisis. chart 6 plots cds premia for a sample of 33 large international banks over the period 2002 to 2011. it partitions the sample into “ crisis ” and “ no crisis ” banks, where the