- stage in the functioning of our financial system for settling exchanges between intermediaries. to preserve this central role, because of its benefits in terms of stability, in the face of the new infrastructures and settlement assets that may emerge with the increasing use of tokenisation and new digital technologies, our conviction at the banque de france is that these services must evolve to support and promote transformations in the post - trading ecosystem that will deliver gains in efficiency and sovereignty, while preserving stability. this is why we have been engaged for several years in an ambitious experimentation programme, both in - house and within the eurosystem. a. in the short and medium term, extending the eurosystem's range of services to meet market needs and the challenge of european sovereignty [ slide 2 ] target services currently provide efficient settlement infrastructures capable of covering a broad range of use cases. however, the growing importance of tokenisation and new technologies mean that this offering needs to be adapted and extended to cater to emerging market expectations. in the course of our experiments – both at national level and within the eurosystem – we have actively collaborated with a wide range of private players, whose firm commitment has demonstrated their keen interest in these innovations, with a variety of objectives in mind, such as lower costs, better integration of products in the market or expanding into crossborder transactions. page 2 of 5 in the light of past and current research, one approach would be to expand the service offering to guarantee the availability of a settlement asset in central bank money covering the new use cases related to the tokenisation of financial instruments, especially through the use of central bank digital currency ( cbdc ). this approach would meet the immediate needs of the market while safeguarding the role of central bank money as the predominant settlement asset for exchanges between financial intermediaries. time will be of the essence when implementing this change. without a strong enough signal, there is a risk that non - european financial players will seize the initiative and impose their own settlement solutions, especially given the advantage conferred by being the ‘ first - mover ’. in addition to using settlement assets that are less secure than central bank money, this could lead the market to shift towards international financial centres offering advanced functionalities, to the detriment of the european market. consequently, the responsiveness of both public and private players will be decisive, and the ability to rapidly deploy a given settlement solution – even one that just satisfies immediate needs in the short term –

key role in this process, with a blueprint expected to be published by the end of the year. at european level, the framework proposed by the pilot programme can support this common vision by enabling the use of new distributed registry technologies to be tested in regulated and secure environments. this framework is an opportunity for market participants to start anticipating and adapting their businesses. nevertheless, regardless of whether we are talking about multilateral trading facilities ( mtf ), securities settlement systems ( sss ) or a combined solution ( trading and settlement systems ), obtaining a licence is both a medium - and a long - term commitment. many players seem reluctant to take this step because of the uncertainty surrounding the future of a central bank digital currency settlement solution for tokenised assets. this uncertainty needs to be resolved and the authorities are working together to provide a clear perspective on what the central bank settlement solution will look like. in my view, a secure and liquid settlement asset available on the dlt is one of the keys to the success of the pilot programme. a cbdc - based solution would provide an important lever in supporting the transition enabled by the pilot programme, and we have already developed our own blockchain, dl3s, for this purpose. but trials are in progress and we shall see which solution is chosen. this european challenge is rounded out by an international challenge. it is vital that the french and european financial sectors are well represented in the experiments being conducted on a global scale, such as the work being carried out by the bank for international settlements. i am thinking in particular of the agora project, which focuses on cbdc and commercial bank money for cross - border payments. adequate representation of national players in these different projects page 4 of 5 is essential for defending our interests and ensuring that the international standards developed are in line with both our interests and our needs. b. setting priorities : maintaining the two - tier monetary system and modernising the market segments that are currently least well served [ slide 4 ] in this phase of the transformation, it is vital not only to cooperate but also to define clear priorities to guide the modernisation of our market infrastructures. the most important of these priorities is to retain the two - tier monetary system, in which central bank and commercial bank money each play a distinct but complementary role. this model has proved its worth in ensuring the stability and resilience of the financial system and must be preserved to help with the adoption of technological innovations without upsetting fundamental balances. at