issues and is engaged in dialogue with the competent institutions. our hope is that shared solutions can be arrived at, capable of guaranteeing these banks ’ continued presence on the market. supervision and crisis management in this phase the single supervisory mechanism, in operation since november, is acting to ensure that the playing field in which the supervised banks do business is as level as possible. initiatives to review the ways in which banks that adopt internal models measure their risk - weighted assets can contribute to the attainment of this objective. the analyses conducted by the supervisory authorities at international level demonstrate, in fact, that differences in the riskiness of bank portfolios do not fully account for the differences found in the way the various banks ’ capital requirements are quantified. significant changes are being made to the legal framework for managing bank crises. at european level plans are being prepared for the resolution of possible banking crises. last week the italian parliament approved the enabling law for the transposition of the bank recovery and resolution directive ( brrd ), to be completed by the promulgation of the mandated legislative decrees. the bank of italy has been designated as the italian resolution authority, and we will shortly make the organizational changes required for the most effective performance of these functions. bis central bankers ’ speeches under the new european rules, if supervisory interventions cannot prevent the failure of a bank, the resolution authority must consider whether to follow the ordinary insolvency procedure – under italian law this means compulsory administrative liquidation – or whether instead it would serve the public interest to initiate the special resolution procedure in order to maintain systemic stability, while holding public support to a minimum and protecting depositors and customers in general. the european commission ’ s 2013 communication on the application of the state aid guidelines already foresees the involvement of a bank ’ s shareholders and subordinated creditors before any public support is provided. with the transposition of the brrd, regardless of possible public intervention, shareholders and holders of capital instruments will be called on to contribute to resolution. starting next year, what is more, a bank ’ s senior creditors can also be “ bailed - in ”. deposits up to €100, 000 will continue to be fully protected by the national guarantee schemes, which have been reviewed at european level to harmonize levels of coverage and to ensure that they have adequate and readily available funds. in any case deposits beyond €100, 000 held by individuals and by small and mediumsized enterprises will receive preferential treatment in respect of other instruments. in

the oecd average, the south and the islands fall worryingly below ( slide 7 ). 16. these gaps translate into analogous gaps for italian adults. the programme for the international assessment of adult competencies ( piaac ) carried out by the oecd between 2013 and 2016 indicates that, at each age cluster, italian adults perform invariably worse than the average adult in the oecd ( slide 8 ). in particular, it reveals, for our country, a widespread lack of those skills – reading and understanding, applying logic and analysing – that respond to modern life and work needs. for example, in literacy proficiency, about 70 per cent of italians appear to be unable to understand long and articulated texts adequately ( a result that makes italy one of the worst performers among the oecd countries participating in the test, in which this share is, on average, about 50 per cent ). in the numeracy test, a similar share turns out to be unable to successfully carry out relatively complex reasoning about quantities and data ( against about 50 per cent in the oecd average ). 17. financial competencies are also low in the international comparison. according to the survey conducted by the bank of italy at the beginning of 2020 as part of an international programme started by the oecd, italy ranks 23rd out of 26 countries according to a synthetic score that measures three areas of financial literacy : knowledge, behaviour and attitudes. italy ’ s score is lower even than that of non - oecd countries with very modest levels of gdp per capita. these findings suggest that the gap in financial literacy with other countries is attributable only in part to lower levels and quality of education or to other unfavourable social or economic conditions and suggests that there is plenty of room for improvement across all the areas of financial literacy. 18. one of the reasons for the gaps that i have just described is linked to the modest level of spending in education, which is especially low at the tertiary level ( slide 9 ). in 2016 the incidence of expenditure on tertiary education on gdp was 0. 9 per cent in italy, one of the lowest shares in the oecd. more effective and, in some cases, additional spending is required in many aspects. in primary and secondary education, the preparation and motivation of teachers are essential and should be adequately nurtured. buildings and infrastructures are often obsolete and, at times, have problems with their overall security, when they should instead