. the european countries which have paid most attention to their competitiveness and those most committed to structural reforms are in a better situation than the others. some of your decisions continue to cause discussion, such as the increase in your rates in 2008, a few weeks before the collapse of lehman brothers... at the time, there was a real threat of inflation expectations becoming destabilised by the increase in oil prices. of course nobody could foresee that lehman brothers would file for bankruptcy in mid - september. the fact that we showed ourselves to be very firm about price stability, fully in line with our definition – less than 2 % but close to 2 % over the medium term – helped us in the crisis. because we avoided not only a materialisation of the inflation risk but also of the deflation risk which, after lehman bankruptcy, was becoming the main danger. a comparison of inflation expectations shows that we have had one of the best “ anti - deflation ” protections of comparable advanced countries. the movement of the “ indignant ones ” is on the rise around the world. do you understand these feelings of helplessness in the face of globalisation? we are seeing at the moment multiple and complex messages that highlight that the fragility of the global economic and financial system is not acceptable. these messages are important. indeed, all the efforts of the international community, particularly those of the g20, aim to improve the soundness of the global economy. these messages are fed by many factors beyond the financial fragility observed since 2007. there is an outcry against the level of some bonuses in the financial sector, which are not accepted by our democracies. the financial sector must change its values. it is also an area of work opened by the g20. there is also another message which is more complex, namely that the changes are too fast. first of all, science and technology are advancing at an unprecedented rate : it ’ s a great success but it requires constant adaptation. second, the emerging markets, all of the former “ third world ” countries, are growing at a pace which has no historical precedent : it ’ s a great success but leading to swift significant economic transformations. third, longer life expectancy is also a remarkable success but is raising major funding problems. bis central bankers ’ speeches three distinct successes but very difficult to control. to put them fully at the service of our citizens, our societies and economies must make an ongoing effort to adapt much faster than

profits ; in other words, not endanger financial stability via an overheating channel. fintech : a new wave of it innovation in such an environment, fintech, which is fast emerging worldwide, could potentially be an " enabler, " opening up new business frontiers and allowing financial institutions to free themselves from the yoke of low profitability. looking at the current state of the global economy, we find the rise of " connected businesses, " which tie together information and services almost instantly over a wide horizon, against the backdrop of advances in digital communications technologies and epitomized with terms like " the fourth industrial revolution " and the " internet of things ( iot ). " " sharing economy " is one example of such development that is gaining traction everywhere, and broadly speaking, fintech can be understood in the same context. a business model where banks develop and sell insurance products. it became popular in europe ( france, italy, and spain in particular ) from the 1990s onward, involving mainly life insurance products. however, there have been signs of deemphasizing this model recently, reflecting doubts on synergies achieved. this trend is probably changing the nature of innovation from the longstanding emphasis on improving individual products to an emphasis on transforming how services are provided ; in other words, the distribution channel of services. in adapting to such a change, firms that can perform meticulous customer analytics will be able to more appropriately and promptly provide individual customers with services that are tailored to their attributes and preferences. such " personalization of services, " as it often is called, is making rapid inroads, especially in fields such as healthcare and development of new drugs. 5, 6 it also could become more prevalent in finance, leveraging on advances in fintech, in areas such as retail payments, remittances, and lending, as well as in less capital intensive areas such as transaction banking and wealth management. 7 here, it is interesting to note that trends in the two of the most heavily regulated activities - - medicine and finance - - are pointing in the same direction with the personalization of services. meanwhile, financial institutions cannot shy away from improving their cost structure in meeting their profitability goals, and here again, fintech can make significant contributions. for example, it is a well - known fact that the return on equity ( roe ) of financial institutions is materially higher in the nordic economies, where online banking is prevalent and branch network density is generally low