, the access to financial products / services is fairly widespread and hence, consumers / market participants are required to be educated more about the characteristics of the financial products / services, including their risks and returns. however, for emerging market economies, ensuring adequate access to financial products and services is more important with the financial literacy initiatives focusing on creating demand for these products / services. in india, the access to products itself is lacking. therefore, ensuring widespread access to financial products / services and greater knowledge about the basic financial products / services, including their risk / return profiles, is essential for expanding the outreach and inclusiveness of the financial system. thus, our financial literacy efforts are closely interlinked with our financial inclusion strategy. why is financial literacy necessary? financial literacy is considered an important adjunct for promoting financial inclusion, consumer protection and ultimately, financial stability. financial inclusion and financial literacy need to go hand in hand to enable the common man to understand the needs and bis central bankers ’ speeches benefits of the products and services offered by the formal financial institutions. we have defined financial inclusion as ensuring access to appropriate financial products and services needed by all sections of the society in general and vulnerable groups, such as weaker sections and low income groups in particular, at an affordable cost, in a fair and transparent manner by regulated mainstream institutional players. so, from the financial literacy perspective, it essentially involves two elements, one of access and the other of literacy. who are the target groups and what messages to deliver? i shall argue here that everyone in the economy needs to be financially literate viz., users and providers of financial products / services. in the indian context, the users can be broadly categorized as the financially excluded resource - poor, the lower and middle income groups and high net worth individuals. for the resource - poor population, financial literacy would invariably involve addressing deep entrenched behavioural and psychological factors that are major barriers to participating in the financial system. for the purpose, our financial literacy efforts are primarily directed towards dissemination of simple messages of financial prudence ( vernacular language ) through large awareness campaigns across the country combined with vigorous roll out of financial inclusion plans by banks, insurance and pension funds, and others. however, it is important to note that being literate is not a necessary prerequisite for attaining financial literacy as the basic financial messages can be conveyed through various alternate means without relying on written inputs. some of the basic messages we seek to deliver are : • why save? • why save regularly and consistently

mugur isarescu : integrated supervision opening speech by mr mugur isarescu, governor of the national bank of romania, at the seminar “ integrated supervision ”, jointly organised by the romanian financial supervisory authority and the national bank of romania, sinaia, 22 january 2014. * * * distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to warmly welcome you to this seminar on integrated supervision. the newly established romanian financial supervisory authority and the national bank of romania decided to jointly organize the conference on this challenging topic that has recently come into the spotlight. i particularly want to thank our guests from the national supervisory authorities of austria, the czech republic, germany, poland, united kingdom and ireland. i also welcome the experts from the world bank, the international monetary fund and the european commission who will generously impart their knowledge to all of us. i do wish all of you a pleasant stay here in sinaia. this three days long seminar is an excellent occasion to learn, to exchange views and to generate professional ties. allow me to say a few words about where you are. this is a premise of the national bank of romania ’ s training center, situated in cumpatu district, in this lovely resort, sinaia. the name sinaia is an eponym of mount sinai. by the end of the 17th century, a group of wallachian monks, led by mihail cantacuzino, a landlord of those times, went on a pilgrimage to palestine and the sinai peninsula. they were hosted at saint catherine monastery. once returned, they established a convent quite here, in the heavily forested area, at the bottom of the carpathians. the new monastery was called sinaia, in the memory of their journey to the sinai peninsula. a century later, the first king of romania, carol i fell in love with the place and built peles castle, his summer residence. following the establishment of the peles castle a railroad connecting the capital to the king ’ s new summer residence was built. little by little, sinaia became popular among the members of the high society : they started building summer residences as well as hotels, villas. you can visit the peles castle and the sinaia monastery on friday. and now about this seminar. the topic of this seminar is integrated supervision to ensure financial stability. it relies on several conceptual layers. first of all, to understand that the frontiers among financial activities have been blurred by financial innovation and the formation