The risks depend, for instance, on how well-diversified the credit portfolio is. The more concentrated it is to certain industries and countries, the greater the capital requirement. A portfolio where the risks are well spread instead reduces the total risk in the portfolio and thereby the capital requirement. This means that the banks  BIS Review 24/2007  5  may have reason to sell some of the risks that arise in their own credit granting and to buy others instead. The current rules do not allow the banks to reduce their capital very much when they use credit derivatives. Basel II increases the opportunities here. It is also likely that the credit derivatives market will to a greater degree develop to include traditional loans. It is already possible to obtain prices for credit derivatives for companies that do not have bonds issued on the bond market. This is on condition that the loan documentation meets the predetermined requirements. It increases the opportunities for Swedish banks to use credit derivatives to sell parts of their own credit risk. Concluding remarks Let me round off. My assessment is that the advantages of credit derivatives exceed the risks for the economy. They have revolutionised the trade in credits in important aspects. The problems related to the market infrastructure are being dealt with successfully and there are many indications that the risks in this field are declining as the market matures. The financial sector has also improved its routines for risk control over the past ten years.

Christian Noyer: France’s Prudential Supervisory Authority and Financial Markets Authority – enhancing the protection of French consumers Introduction by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France, President of the Prudential Supervisory Authority (Autorité de contrôle prudentiel) and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the ACP-AMF academic symposium, Paris, 11 May 2012. *  *  *  Dear Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to this symposium organised today by the Prudential Supervisory Authority and the Financial Markets Authority. Before saying a few words on the subject of this morning’s discussions, I would like to say just how much Jean-Pierre Jouyet and myself are attached to fruitful collaboration between the two authorities that we preside. Since the creation of the ACP two years ago, the ACP and the AMF have united their efforts to durably enhance the protection of French consumers. A common division has been set up. Apart from the public information platform, Assurance Banque Épargne Info Service, which the general public is increasingly aware of, the two authorities have also conducted numerous consumer protection initiatives. For example, in 2010, the simultaneous publication of an ACP recommendation and an AMF guideline allowed the establishment of a framework for the marketing of complex products whatever their distribution channel. In order to limit the excesses sometimes encountered, these two texts underscored the need for contracts that are intelligible to non-professional consumers. In 2011, the number of jointly conducted control missions increased.