running costs for businesses. the implications are that if we get our citizens into the mode of depending on the government for everything this will not get them into the creative spirit of creating wealth and jobs. we must always remember that a nation is the aggregation of all its individual citizens and that if the nation is experiencing difficulty all of its citizens are also suffering in one way or the other. in rectifying the problem there has to be some level of equity in sharing the pain, but the basic fundamental problem still remains and has to be treated with. to give a basic example, suppose an individual earned $ 10, 000 a month and was able to spend through credit $ 15, 000 a month. at the end of the year he / she would be in debt to the total of $ 60, 000. at this point the creditors would say we have stopped extending credit and you now have to start paying back. if the repayment period was one year, the individual would now have to live on $ 5, 000 a month, which is quite a drop from $ 15, 000. of course, they might be given more time. the moral of this example is that this holds for individuals, firms and governments. speaking directly to the question of development, the eccb sees its role to be in the area of money and capital market development once the stability conditions have been treated with. we have analysed the gaps in the system and are proceeding along the lines of establishing markets and institutions, putting in place the regulatory framework, and removing legal and administrative barriers to the creation of a single financial space. in the area of markets we have the following : • a common market for the ec dollar and foreign currencies ; • an ibm to provide liquidity for banks ; • a rgsm to provide markets for government securities ; • a securities market for shares ; • a secondary market for primary mortgages. with respect to institutions we have established : • the eastern caribbean securities exchange depository and registry ; • the eastern caribbean home mortgage bank. we are now working on an eastern caribbean enterprise fund to be followed by an eastern caribbean unit trust. a number of supporting institutions such as the eastern caribbean institute of bankers, the eastern caribbean bankers association, and the eastern caribbean institute of accountants have also been established. we need to have close liaison with the oecs bar association and we hope that a vibrant oecs business council will be created to push the development of the private sector in the region

cent ), financial literacy is lamentably low and lugubrious. how do we explain the following? persons falling for scams that offer prizes for competitions in which they were never registered. persons who engage in hire purchases being ignorant or indifferent to effective interest rates, with some as high as 35 %. the proliferation of payday loans, which essentially means attempting to ride up on a down escalator - a veritable debt trap. highly credentialed persons being clueless about managing their personal finances. only 1 in 25 persons ( 4 per cent ) in the eccu are invested in the regional and international capital markets, but several persons are now pursuing investments in high - risk cryptocurrencies. persons spending their limited income on wants while begging family, friends and government for their basic needs. this latter behaviour calls to mind a remarkable observation by the late martin luther king jr. who in the 1960s observed that many black people were spending money on their wants and then begging for their needs. against this backdrop, this survey is no ordinary survey and cannot be an academic exercise. indeed, urgent action is needed to address financial literacy and inclusion in the eccu. over the past 21 years, the eccb has sought to raise the level of financial literacy through our savings and investment courses, our annual financial information month, and in the past seven years through our weekly podcast eccb connects. for these efforts, i wish to acknowledge the work of past and present eccb staff and partners. 2 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches you have helped many, but many more still need to be helped. in short, we need to scale up. i also wish to hail the pioneering work of professor annamaria lusardi through the global financial literacy excellence centre. in 2018, in the margins of the imf / wb annual meetings, i had the opportunity to see her present the findings of the standard and poor's financial literacy survey. the key finding was that only 1 in 3 persons are financially literate. that encounter planted a seed in my mind. i returned to the eccu with a question and a determination to investigate the precise state of financial literacy in the eccu and to do something about it. call to action - time for a strategy to scale up we live in a shock - prone world. as a region vulnerable to external shocks, we must be engaged in a lifelong pursuit of building resilience including financial resilience. this is