benchmarks for investors, and is likely to increase their confidence in the mechanisms associated with crypto assets and thus promote their development. b. in the longer term, the objective should be to strengthen capital to finance innovation in an economy close to the “ technological frontier ", as is the case in france, the key to growth lies in business innovation, and therefore in equity financing in the long term : as innovation is more risky, financing it must yield greater rewards. however, in france, household savings are only modestly invested in equity products, and this is reflected in corporate financing. [ slide 2 ] there is a significant contrast between the united states and france, where corporate equity accounts for 122 % and 77 % of gdp respectively. from this point of view, france is not different from the rest of the euro area with the exception of germany ( 80 % ). what are the solutions? at the national level, the pacte act proposes certain advances in life insurance, which is by far french households ’ leading form of financial savings ( eur 1, 700 billion at end - 2018 ), in particular to promote the euro - growth fund by making it simpler and more understandable for savers and to increase insurers ’ investment in innovation financing. the french authorities are also very careful that the current review of the solvency ii directive is favourable to the long - term investment of insurers in equities. at the european level [ slide 3 ], we need to build a real “ financing union for investment and innovation ” to better steer our resources – a savings surplus of eur 345 billion in the euro area5 – towards equity and innovation. this financing union must bring together and amplify existing initiatives, the capital markets union, the banking union and the juncker investment plan. i would now like to answer my second question : is the diversification of sources of financing sufficient? from my point of view, the answer is no because diversification carries risks that need to be well managed. ii. diversifying sources of financing is a complex business whose success requires 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches managing all the traditional and new risks faced by intermediaries a. first, there are the risks linked to fast - growing private sector debt corporate debt in france is growing much faster than in the rest of europe [ slide 4 ]. we are now significantly above the euro area average. this raises the question of the sustainability of this debt, and of the impact of an

upward shock to interest rates or a downward shock to activity, especially in an increasingly uncertain macroeconomic context ( trade tensions, italian budget, brexit, yellow vests ). given the situation, it was essential to avoid an infinite debt spiral. in december 2017, the haut conseil de stabilite financiere, under the chairmanship of minister bruno le maire, thus decided to lower to 5 % of their equity the ceiling of the main banks ’ exposures to the most indebted large companies. it also decided to raise the countercyclical capital buffer of french banks, by 0. 25 % in june 2018 and again by 0. 25 % in march 2020. this countercyclical buffer, expressed as a percentage of core equity and applied to french exposures, aims at enabling banks to build up a capital reserve to maintain their supply of credit in the event of a turnaround in the financial cycle, the buffer then being immediately released. however, these binding instruments apply only to banks, while non - bank intermediation is playing an increasing role in financing the economy. according to the ecb, the loans and deposits of investment funds have risen threefold since 2011. macroprudential policy thus needs to be adjusted to better take account of this new dimension. the hcsf is firmly committed to this goal. its powers enable it to intervene outside the banking sector and it has started designing stress tests that cover all sectors. b. at the same time, a number of new, more structural risks are also emerging, brought about by digitalisation and global warming digitisation first gives a systemic dimension to cyber risk. the expansion of digital practices contributes to the propagation of cyber risk and amplifies it, through the interconnections between financial institutions, but also between them and their service providers. the fact that some of these providers are fintechs and bigtechs, which are unregulated and not easily substitutable, is an additional vulnerability factor. to cope with these risks, we must resist the temptation to set up a bunker - style security system, which is a dead end, but rather imagine a system which combines openness and innovation. this is why we, at the banque de france and the acpr, are working with the other supervisors of the eurosystem to ensure that the entities we supervise take cyber risk into account and to set up a broad programme for protecting the infrastructures that we