in this regard, there is clearly a need to act across europe with regards to the buoyancy of the residential real estate market. in france, the macroprudential authority has put in place since 2019 a framework to regulate lending standards in the residential real estate market by imposing a debt - service - to - income ratio 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches cap of 35 % and a maturity limit of 25 years on new housing loans. such measures together with the prominence of fixed rates in france, has strengthened households ’ financial resilience against any potential increase in market interest rate and any related rise in loan maturity. 3. challenges associated with climate change and digitalisation of finance the challenges brought forward or amplified by the war in ukraine should not blind us to more structural vulnerabilities, which the war in ukraine has not made disappear. what i have in mind here is the transition to a sustainable economy and the digitalisation of finance. to conclude my remarks i would like to say a few words about the role we can play as supervisors and central banks to help banks address those two challenges. regarding the first one, the publication at the beginning of the month of the last contribution to the ipcc 6th assessment report on climate change mitigation reminds us of the need for an urgent transition toward carbon neutrality, which will entail major transition risks for banks. supervisors have already started to assess the exposure and disclosure of financial institutions to those risks to incentivize them to identify, assess and manage those risks as mainstream ones – and the acpr played a pioneering role in this respect, with the achievement of the first bottom - up climate risks stress - test last year. from now on climate risks will be progressively integrated into the prudential framework, starting with pillar 3 and pillar 2 requirements. banks must step up their efforts to prepare meeting these forthcoming regulatory requirements, including those related to climate stress - tests and banks ’ transition plans, which are part of the crd6 proposal currently in negotiation. as regards the pillar 1 framework, let me note that the integration of climate risks is still a hotly debated topic and i hope the upcoming publication of a discussion paper by the eba on this issue will allow us to move forward. we shouldn ’ t jump to conclusions though. there are many methodological and data shortcomings to address before implementing new requirements. in any case, let me emphasise that from my supervisory perspective the pillar 1 should remain risk - based and that we

should overcome the green / brown dichotomy by assessing transition risk on the basis of the transition plans instead. regarding the digitalisation of finance, in addition to the support to the development of regulations, like dora and mica, that are intended to facilitate the development of innovations in a confidence and financial stability enhancing framework, we can, as central banks, play a positive operational role in revisiting the central bank money services we provide. this is indeed what we have started to do with the conduct by the banque de france of 9 experiments which consisted in putting central bank money “ on the ledger ” for interbank settlement purposes of securities transactions or cross - border payments, and with the launch by the ecb of an investigation phase for a digital euro for merchants and citizens ’ daily payments needs. however, let me note here that issuing a retail cbdc raises a number of challenges, in particular because financial intermediaries, including banks, play a key role in the security and financial stability of our monetary and financial system. these challenges need to be addressed by design in the architecture and functionality of a digital euro, for example by introducing holding limits and by promoting an intermediated model. this is why it is essential that the financial intermediaries, along with the other stakeholders, be properly involved in the investigation phase that is currently conducted. but it must be clear that beyond regulators and central banks, the private sector has also a key role to play to ensure that the digitalisation of finance indeed brings about the efficiency benefits it is expected to deliver without jeopardizing the stability of our financial system. from that perspective i would like to underline the strategic importance of the european payments initiative. 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the epi is currently the only project aiming to offer an integrated pan - european payment solution with a common brand, and not based on the interoperability of heterogeneous domestic solutions. i regret that part of the european banking community has prioritised other interests over a common, lasting project. this shrinking of the number of shareholders has inevitable consequences on the capacity of the initiative, leading epi to give up on a european card scheme, and leaving this field open for international schemes in the short and medium term. on the other hand, we can also acknowledge that epi has decided to invest in the next generation of payments : mobile, account - to - account and instant payments. eight of the first ten european banks and the two largest european