manageable way. this is essential because it is about reducing inequalities and making sure that more fragile populations, households and small businesses, are not left out of economic development. of course, private actors have understood that financial inclusion might benefit improvements and have a huge role to play in such a journey. there are many areas where private actors can help : improving access to financial services, for instance via mobile devices, gathering more and better data, which allows for more tailored and better - priced products, driving down operation costs, and making relationships with fragile clients more profitable. these expected benefits should obviously not hide new risks related to financial inclusion in a digitalised world : a risk of digital divide, leaving out those who are not at ease with digitalisation, or even the risk of security issues for personal data if not handled properly. we, at the banque de france are very attentive to those issues because our institution has been entrusted by law to support financial inclusion. our contributions in that area are today quite diverse and are a major part of our mission to provide services to the public, in the line with three major objectives : improving fair access, preventing inequalities of treatment and improving financial literacy. as regards fair access, one good example is the banque de france ’ s involvement in the “ right to an account ” procedure set up by french law. if banks refuse to open a bank account for a client, he or she can make a request to us and we will designate a bank within 24 hours. this specific bank account will provide basic services free of charge. in 2019, 51, 000 people made use of that right. as regards the second objective to help preventing inequalities of treatment, the banque de france is involved in preventing and addressing households ’ overindebtedness issues. along with other stakeholders, we help them find solutions to their financial difficulties. in 2019, more than 150, 000 such situations were examined. the banque de france also chairs the observatory for banking inclusion, which is in charge of promoting financial inclusion and especially of monitoring the banking industry ’ s commitment to cap payment incident fees for all financially vulnerable customers. lastly, the banque de france promotes financial literacy, through its role of national coordinator of involved stakeholders, by providing specific tools, resources and training for social workers. ii. how do we promote sustainable innovation let me illustrate now more concretely what we do to foster sustainable innovation. our actions 2 / 5 bis central

bankers'speeches take two main forms : - the support to and implementation of regulatory frameworks and supervisory practices that foster both innovation and the stability of our financial system - our inclusion as a player in the financial innovation ecosystem 1most of the current regulatory framework was designed before the technological “ disruptions ” that we are now facing. it therefore seems logical to adapt it to these technological evolutions as well as to their challenges and associated risks. the same, naturally, applies to our supervisory framework and methods. the success of the payment services directives ( psd1 & 2 ) has illustrated that the european legislation can accompany new trends and trigger innovation. with new settlement assets such as global stablecoins, the adaptation of existing regimes will have to fit into a larger regulatory framework, to be adopted at a global level. these adaptations must preserve and consolidate two fundamentals of financial sector regulation : the financial stability objective and the principle of monetary sovereignty. in this respect, i would like to commend the ambitiousness of the european commission ’ s recent digital finance package and its priorities, in particular those to fight against the fragmentation of the digital single market for financial services and to address the new challenges and risks associated with the digital transformation. with regard to these risks, i think it is appropriate for the commission to address the complex but currently unavoidable issue of the oversight framework to be applied to critical it service providers, including cloud service providers, and the equally important matter of the supervision of issuers and distributors of stablecoins, whether they be single or multicurrency coins. the pilote regime, which is intended to allow market trading facilities and central securities depositories to be exempted, for a period up to six years, from specific existing rules listed in the regulation, in order to trade, settle and register crypto - assets on distributed ledger technology might also invite central banks to examine the conditions under which they could make available their own settlement asset, central bank money, beyond the inner circle of banks. 2 - adapting the regulatory framework will not be enough to keep up with the pace of innovation. at the banque de france, we consider it necessary to be a useful player in the innovation ecosystem, in pursuing two objectives : facilitate and experiment. and we are therefore particularly active in this regard through a variety of initiatives that have been made possible by innovative tools that the bank decided to set up in the recent years : - le lab, our innovation centre opened in june 2017,