Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to begin by thanking France Fintech and its President, Alain Clot, for inviting me to speak here today. This year we celebrate the 10th anniversary of France Fintech, which also gives me an opportunity to congratulate the association for its considerable achievements over the years promoting the French fintech ecosystem and highlighting its successes.
Unfortunately, the geopolitical context is less auspicious, particularly with the exceptional uncertainty caused by the new US administration’s policy declarations and unpredictability, which is weighing on our economic and financial position. But, as the Governor of the Banque de France recently said in his annual Letter to the President of the French Republic, we should not let this overwhelm us; on the contrary, it should inspire us to take action and finally regain control of our economic destiny. France and Europe need more growth, and one of the best ways of achieving this is through faster innovation.
The financial sector can and must be at the forefront of this innovation acceleration. Clearly, the fintechs have a crucial role to play – in their short history, they have already shown how skilled they are at leveraging new technologies to invent new business models or make existing ones more efficient.
Financial authorities must also help to meet the collective challenge – and the Banque de France and ACPR are already firmly committed to this. To prove my point, I would like to give you three examples of what is being done, both at the national and European levels: first, on simplifying regulations (I); second on supporting the adoption of artificial intelligence (II); and lastly on supporting the tokenisation of finance (III).
