intense work was needed to implement the new supervisory system. milestones included the completion of the single supervisory mechanism regulation in october 2013 ; the approval of another regulation assigning responsibilities to the european central bank and national authorities ; and the drafting of a supervisory manual setting out the best supervisory practices of each country and implementing common procedures for all members of the system. one of the main objectives of the new institutional design is to ensure that the ecb ’ s supervisory functions do not clash with its monetary policy responsibilities. to this end, a new supervisory board was set up in the ecb to plan and conduct banking supervision. this board will be responsible for making proposals on supervision to the governing council, which continues to be the highest decision - making body of the ecb in both monetary policy and supervision. the start - up of the ssm constitutes an unprecedented transformation of the responsibilities of the participating national supervisory authorities, which naturally include the banco de espana. the single supervisory mechanism regulation distinguishes two groups of banks. first, the 120 banks considered to be significant, 15 of which are spanish ( although their number will drop to 14 when the acquisition of catalunya banc by bbva is completed ). they will be directly supervised by the ecb through so - called joint supervisory teams made up of staff from the ecb and the national supervisors. second, the more than 3, 000 less significant banks will continue to be the direct responsibility of national authorities, although the ecb will indirectly monitor their situation and the supervisory actions to which they are subject. as a prior step to the creation of the ssm, a comprehensive assessment of the euro area ’ s significant banks was conducted and the results were made public on 26 october. this exercise consisted of two parts : an asset quality review and a stress test. the assessment of asset quality involved an in - depth review of bank balance sheets as at end - 2013. it was carried out with the assistance of the top audit firms. the stress tests assessed the capacity of banks, in a three - year period from 2014 to 2016, to absorb losses under two hypothetical macroeconomic scenarios : a baseline, more likely one ; and an adverse one, less likely but not impossible. this second phase of the exercise was basically carried out by the banks themselves. both phases were subject to strict quality assurance in which the national supervisory authorities, in our case the banco de espana, played a key role. the exercise considered minimum capital thresholds which had to be exceeded in each of

pablo hernandez de cos : audiovisual communication competition on financial education speech by mr pablo hernandez de cos, governor of the bank of spain and chairman of the basel committee on banking supervision, at the general council of economists, 4 february 2021. * * * third deputy prime minister and minister for economic affairs and digital transformation, vicechair of the cnmv, chair of the general council of economists, ladies and gentlemen : let me begin by thanking the general economists association for organising this event, which marks the conclusion of the audiovisual communication competition on financial education. let me congratulate, too, the winners, other finalists and participants for their effort, dedication and high - quality work. the competition, like most activities since the onset of the pandemic, has had to adapt to the extraordinary circumstances we are facing. both organisers and contestants have shown high adaptability. the contestants have had to put all their creativity into a digital content. these circumstances also serve to emphasise how financial education can complement the development of other citizens ’ capabilities, particularly those relating to digital skills. clearly, this competition aside, we have all in the last few months purchased more goods and services, including financial ones, through digital channels. this trend will likely continue in the future. to ensure citizens adapt appropriately to these developments, financial education efforts must run in tandem with digital education ones. otherwise, pockets of financial exclusion ( for instance among our elderly ) could arise, or the risks deriving from uninformed financial purchases could be compounded by those resulting from the use of an unknown digital channel. the videos presented have adequately captured the importance of the concept of responsible finance. this was, indeed, the central slogan of the 2020 financial education day. however, not only have they captured the concept adequately, they have also been able to project it towards one of its most important components : responsible consumption. in this regard, i would like to highlight that exercising this responsibility involves all players. first, customers ( all of us ), as many videos have accurately illustrated, must exercise responsible consumption. this requires us to assess our own available resources and borrowing capacity. in short, the idea is to avoid excessive over - indebtedness, which we know generates highly adverse effects that influence our life decisions over an extended period of time. second, such responsible behaviour must be demanded of financial institutions, which should practice what we call “ responsible lending ”. this entails properly assessing the creditworthiness