the 100 richest men in the world, who committed suicide when his investments soured. what is clear is that having piles of money that would allow them to live in luxury was not enough. the chase for money became the end goal. this is where the value of good and ethical finance educators comes in. educators who will provide their students solid grounding on what financial success means and the ethical parameters for achieving it. helping your students develop the ethical compass and the moral fortitude to adhere to doing things the right way should help them find their way in a challenging world. for as we know, doing the right things is not necessarily the easiest path to follow. american civil rights leader martin luther king, jr. once said that “ intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education. ” that is the challenge before our educators. as finance educators i hope you will always be mindful that sitting before you in your class are the future leaders of our banking and finance institutions. that you have the power to nurture leaders who can truly make a difference in improving the quality of life of our people. this is the same philosophy that underpins the economic and financial education program of the bangko sentral ng pilipinas : improving lives through literacy programs that will empower them to benefit from opportunities that development brings. as you and i know, there are millions of filipinos who still live in poverty. if we can harness the liberating effects of financial know - how, even at its most basic, then we would be able to help millions of filipinos help themselves. empowerment is the key. this is the reason why economic and financial education is at the heart of bangko sentral ’ s advocacies. it is a social good, whose value to society is considerably much more than the personal gains. financial learning empowers the citizenry as it helps the public acquire knowledge and develop skills in making well - informed economic and financial decisions necessary to ensure well - functioning markets that, in turn, support economic growth and development. and when consumers and producers understand financial issues, they are less vulnerable to fraudulent practices and scams. as they grow in their understanding of financial products, whose variety and complexity have grown in leaps and bounds, they will be able to prepare and chart their financial future based on their preferences for risks and rewards. just as financial learning helps to protect the public from unsafe financial practices, it also affords the public better opportunities for financial advancement and wealth creation

point is : what do we need to do in order to restore the principle of liability? the decisive point is that banks must be able to fail without dragging down the entire financial system with them. to this end, a new international standard on the recovery and resolution of systemically relevant banks has been developed. having this new standard is a major step forward. at the same time, a single resolution mechanism will be a central pillar of the european banking union. it will allow authorities to restructure or resolve banks without putting taxpayers ’ money at stake. the owners of the bank and the creditors will be the first in line when it comes to bearing the costs of a bank failure. due to its importance, let me stress how crucial it is that those involved in the negotiations reach an agreement on the european single resolution mechanism prior to the european elections in may. a european banking supervision cannot be effective without a european resolution mechanism. in the same context, the comprehensive assessment is crucial as a precondition for a successful banking union. the objective is to uncover any legacy assets in banks ’ balance sheets and to assess their resilience to stress scenarios. with that objective in mind, the asset quality review and the stress test have to be tough and thorough. this will ensure that european supervision and european resolution mechanisms do not have to deal with problems that arose under national supervision. banks and states aligning the banking sector with the principles of a market economy will take us a big step towards financial stability. but it won ’ t take us all the way. to safeguard the stability of the entire financial system, we have to look beyond the banks. one issue we definitely have to address is the connection between banks and the public sector. the banking system is closely linked with public finances. this link was a major driver bis central bankers ’ speeches of the crisis in the euro area. so, let us now take a closer look at the link between banks and states. when the financial crisis unfolded and banks everywhere ran into difficulties, governments had to step in to avoid a breakdown of the entire financial system. this experience is a real world example of the “ too big to fail ” problem which i discussed a moment ago. however, saving banks is a costly endeavour for governments. let ’ s take ireland as an example. in order to save its banking sector, ireland ran up a budget deficit amounting to 30 % of its economic output in 2010. in the same year, germany added almost €33 billion to its public