that, in a setting in which less than half the population understands the concept of compound interest rates, there is such demand for complex assets with these characteristics. lastly, i wish to refer to the risk of authorising – owing to a lack of knowledge or of due care – access to personal information that would preferably have been kept private. the debate over the use of personal information in the area of payment services has heightened with 6 / 7 the new directive known as psd2, which institutionalises the so - called tpp ( third party providers ). tpp encompass “ payment initiation service providers ” and “ account information service providers ”. the former offer an alternative to the use of cards when making electronic purchase payments. the latter provide consolidated information on the status of the various accounts the customer has with entities, thereby facilitating financial planning. payments account holders are entitled to authorise these third party providers to order payments on their behalf and / or to consult information associated with their accounts. against this background, and irrespective of the usefulness of these services, it is important that customers should strive to understand the real scope of the authorisation granted, which may entail access to their account by a third party on the same footing as if it were the customers themselves accessing the account. faced with risks such as the foregoing, magnified by the development of new technologies, i believe that financial education has a role to play. it may help, for example, make people aware of the change in reality that the digital arrangement of agreements entails or increase the digital competences of the public at large. the financial education plan mindful of the foregoing, the banco de espana and the cnmv continue working on their commitment to financial education through the financial education plan. over the past ten years, and using two courses of action, one covering the 2008 - 2012 period and the other the years 2013 - 2017, this plan has enabled actions such as the following to be carried out : the financial education programme for schools, which seeks to improve students ’ financial literacy ; the consolidation of an extensive network of public and private collaborators ; the institution of a “ financial education day ” on the first monday of october each year ; and the website finanzasparatodos ( “ finance for all ” ), which contains basic material on household finances, such as how to get to the end of the month or how to manage finances at different stages of life. indeed, this week has seen the

15 ). the modest growth of productivity has been associated with a lower rate of growth of firms ’ average productivity in spain than in other european countries, and with an allocation of resources to less productive firms during the past expansion. addressing these problems requires an improved business competition framework. regarding this last matter, over the last decade much of the loss in competitiveness – measured in terms of relative unit labour cost indicators – accumulated during the expansionary phase relative to the euro area as a whole ( see chart 16 ) has been recovered. this improvement is mainly explained by the improved labour productivity associated with severe job destruction during the crisis and by wage moderation, while the correction associated with profit margins has been less important. this fact, which at first may have been associated with the need for firms to improve their financial position, may now be evidencing a certain lack of business competition in some sectors, the persistence of which may hinder the proper allocation of resources, incentives and innovative capacity and, in general, the well - being of consumers. in order to foster an adequate level of competition, apart from lowering the barriers to entry in some sectors, certain regulations hampering the development of new productive firms will have to be reviewed, either because they provide incentives contrary to the development of business growth or because they hinder the exit from the market of firms with sub - optimal productivity, thereby limiting the proper allocation of productive resources in the spanish economy. additionally, enhanced productivity requires improvements in human and technological capital. in this respect, the educational legal framework needs to be strengthened, to eliminate the gap between the educational quality indicators of spain and other developed 10 / 14 countries, and the challenges to spain ’ s educational and occupational training system posed by globalisation, technological process and task automation need to be addressed without delay. furthermore, during the crisis the technological capital gap between spain and its european partners widened due to lower spending on r & d as a proportion of gdp in the public and, particularly, the private sector. in addition to the structural features limiting firms ’ innovative ability ( in terms of human capital, business capabilities, productive structure, business competition and financing ), spain ’ s public research system is susceptible to improvement and the budgetary funding of innovation is low. challenges facing the spanish banking sector let me now concentrate on some of the main challenges facing the spanish banking sector. despite the significant progress made in recent years in terms of profitability, solvency and liquidity, it still faces some significant challenges