Welcome to Lisbon. Welcome to the Bank of Portugal. Welcome to the Course on the design and implementation of financial education strategies, which the Bank of Portugal warmly welcomes and organizes with the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), which from now on, in the person of Dr Carlos Moya, thank you for the availability of this partnership.

I greet all participants.

Our fellow trainers, who belong to the staff of the Bank of Portugal and the Central Bank of Brazil. And our colleagues from the National Bank of Angola, the Bank of Cape Verde, the Bank of Mozambique, the Central Bank of São Tomé and Príncipe, the Central Bank of Timor Leste and also our colleague from the Faro agency. You are the recipients of our work and I look forward to your being useful and pleasant.

This course is organized under the Cooperation Protocol signed between the Central Banks of Portuguese Speaking Countries (BCPLP) and AFI in 2017, during the III Meeting on Inclusion and Financial Training.

In good time we did it. The Protocol formalized the institutional collaboration between the BCPLP and AFI, with a view to carrying out projects that allow the reinforcement of competences for the promotion of inclusion and financial training in the Portuguese-speaking countries.

In February 2018 the first initiative under the Protocol was organized: the “Training of trainers in personal finance management”, which objective was to train a group of trainers to take the same course in their countries, by sharing information and experiences on methodologies appropriate to different target audiences and to different social and economic contexts.

The present course on “Design and implementation of financial education strategies” is thus the second initiative developed under the Protocol between the AFI and the BCPLP. And many more will follow, certainly. On the part of Banco de Portugal we are fully available to continue supporting these initiatives.

This course is also a further reflection of the long history of cooperation between the BCPLP and will certainly allow an in-depth sharing of experiences on financial education strategies, in particular on approaches and methodologies that may be more efficient, taking into account the characteristics of each situation.

Financial education policies are now clearly assumed as part of the central bank’s mission. How people deal with money, how they make their consumption decisions, what motivates them to save or borrow money depends on their financial knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour; and these are not only for their well-being, but also for the allocation of resources in the financial markets and for the stability of the financial system.

International studies, including financial literacy surveys, show deficits in financial literacy in all countries where they are carried out. The challenge of raising people’s financial literacy is great, but the challenge of changing attitudes and behaviours is even greater. Therefore, it is important to develop structured projects that will last in time.

Priorities regarding the themes, target audiences and marketing channels for banking products depend on the diagnosis of each country’s needs and its economic, financial and institutional context. The communication channels to be used must also be adjusted to the objectives set. In this respect, behavioural economics has important lessons to consider in designing financial education initiatives that promote knowledge retention and behaviour change in the short and medium term.

The Bank of Portugal expects that the sharing of experiences throughout this training course will help support the implementation of the financial training strategies of each participating country. This exchange of experiences will continue at the Fourth Meeting of the BCPLP on Inclusion and Financial Training that will take place on the 4th and 5th of July.

I hope that it will be three very productive and very useful days. Because of the commitment of my colleagues in the Banking Conduct Supervision Department to this initiative, I am convinced that when this training ends, you will feel genuinely that it was worthwhile to go to Portugal to participate in this Course.

I hope, therefore, that you will be willing to return to discuss this or other issues in the scope of cooperation between BCPLP, since, on the part of the Bank of Portugal, this cooperation is a structural commitment of their performance and, also, a very special pleasure. I leave you, then, the guarantee that we will all continue to work together.

Many thanks for being here and for your attention.