the governing council as part of a healthy decision - making process, it is also very important to us to preserve the collegiality of its deliberations. this is why we have chosen to publish accounts of our monetary policy discussions rather than minutes. decision - making by committee reflects more than the sum of the pre - established views of its individual members. views during the discussion can be “ fluid ” – which is after all exactly the purpose of discussing. moreover, once a decision is made, what matters is the shared commitment of the governing council, in its entirety, to fully implement all decisions that have been taken. we did not want the publication of the accounts to detract in any way from these two crucial aspects of collegial decision - making. in our view, providing a fair and balanced summary of the main arguments put forward was the best way to achieve this. and indeed, from this perspective our first attempt was successful. as the account of the january discussion shows, the final decision taken in the light of the discussion slightly modified the initial proposal under consideration. the council decided to accelerate and frontload the impact of asset purchases by increasing the monthly asset purchase volume to eur 60 bn, from the eur 50 bn considered initially. you will have noted that the language we use reflects our collegiate, consensus - oriented mode of discussion and decision - making. this includes qualifiers such as “ broadly agreed ” and “ widely shared ” which convey in broad terms the balance of opinion behind the assessment and arguments put forward. there is however no information to be extracted from the particular form of words used. the language should not in any way be construed in quantitative terms or linked mechanically to our policy decisions. bis central bankers ’ speeches finally, why do we not provide a vote tally? in line with our collegial approach, the governing council has an established tradition of taking monetary policy decisions by consensus, without recourse to formal voting and without qualifying the decisions in any particular way. there are of course occasions when forging a consensus is not possible, and then the council can take decisions by majority, be it small or large, as was the case with the january decisions. nevertheless, not publishing a voting record allows members to support the decision of the committee, even if they may have personally preferred a different course of action. conclusion let me conclude. enhancing transparency is a logical step for central banks facing an increasingly uncertain environment. in different ways all major central banks have moved

##s. our monetary policy must now be guided by confidence and patience : confidence that we are making steady progress in bringing inflation down towards 2 % by 2025 ; and patience that interest rates will remain stable at their current level for the time still needed to pass them on in full. page 2 of 12 1. 1 enhanced profitability and solvency there can be no doubt that european banks are generally benefiting from higher key interest rates, although there is a certain time lag for french banks due to their business model. the predominantly fixed interest rates on their assets ( 97 % of outstanding housing loans are granted at fixed rates ), and on regulated savings on the liabilities side, mean that financial conditions take longer to adapt in france. an automatic catch - up is expected over the next few quarters, as french banks continue to renew their assets and liabilities. this time lag has been attenuated by the decision to stabilise the interest rate on livret a passbook accounts, which was kept at 3 % on 1 august and should remain stable at this level until at least 1 february 2025. this is a very favourable decision for bank interest rate margins ; the counterparty, i should recall, is the accelerated growth in popular savings passbook accounts ( leps ), which were held by as many as 10. 3 million savers in september 2023, a number which should climb to over 12. 5 million next summer. this stabilisation of interest rates on the livret a passbook account is also intended to ensure the sound financing for the french economy – i'll come back to this point later. the financial results of the french banking sector have remained very robust : the 2023 half - year on half - year pre - tax earnings of the six largest banking groups grew by 2. 5 % to stand at eur 21. 7 billion and net banking income ( nbi ) has been trending upwards since early 2022. consequently, french banks'solvency ratio has improved once again, rising to 15. 6 % at 30 june 2023, compared with 15. 1 % at the end of 2022, well above minimum regulatory requirements. the results published by the four main french banking groups in the third quarter of 2023 ii point to a more mixed performance, with french retail banking revenues sometimes impaired by interest rate hedging strategies that can prove costly in the current interest rate environment. iii page 3 of 12 the rise in interest rates is also