I’ll start with retail lending. It is important that we see balanced growth in retail lending. I said at the beginning of my speech that it is important not to reach dangerous levels of household debt burden. We are now being forced to pay attention to unsecured lending again. Here 2/5  BIS central bankers' speeches  are some figures: in March of this year, debt on unsecured lending increased by 1.9% in just one month. According to preliminary data, it grew by another 1.6% in April. If such rates persist, then the annual growth will be about 20%, which is much higher than the growth of household incomes. We are already seeing an increase in debt burden. Now households are directing almost 12% of disposable income (11.9%) to servicing loans. This is 1 percentage point more than it was pre-pandemic, when we were already rather concerned about unsecured lending. We do not want this trend to grow, so we have returned to the macroprudential policy we pursued before the pandemic. This involves the following requirement: more capital on loans granted to borrowers that already have loans. But we understand that such macroprudential measures ‘eat away’ at banks’ capital, which could be used to expand lending in other segments and cover losses on restructured loans. What’s more, these measures affect different banks in different ways, that is to say, they almost don’t have a discouraging effect on banks with a large capital reserve, while they seriously impact those banks that have a small capital reserve.
The reward of an excellent work in an unknown domain is the 6900 students who have chosen to attend as an elective subject “Personal finance in your hands” published by the Bank of Albania. In cooperation with the Ministry of  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Education and Science, we are endeavouring to make this book available in every school and to each student with the ultimate goal for them to be educated financially and empowered to manage personal finance. Only in this academic year, high-school students in 36 districts of Albania chose this book as an elective subject, making us optimistic and forward-looking. We strongly believe that the today’s young generation will be the protagonists of tomorrow’s economic life. For this purpose, we need to make our utmost investment for their formation, in order to ensure not only their future, but also the country’s future. The youth are eager and capable to assimilate, process and convey information, habits, or new products in any field of life. They are the transmitters of innovation, the most energetic and progressive segment of the society. It is our moral, professional and institutional responsibility to invest for a qualitative education of the young generation. To us, enhancing financial literacy is crucial. A well-educated nation guarantees its country’s welfare and progress. Therefore, we have decided to choose the young generation as our strategic partner to realize this challenge. We believe in their idealism, positive energy and pure spirit.