pablo hernandez de cos : audiovisual communication competition on financial education speech by mr pablo hernandez de cos, governor of the bank of spain and chairman of the basel committee on banking supervision, at the general council of economists, 4 february 2021. * * * third deputy prime minister and minister for economic affairs and digital transformation, vicechair of the cnmv, chair of the general council of economists, ladies and gentlemen : let me begin by thanking the general economists association for organising this event, which marks the conclusion of the audiovisual communication competition on financial education. let me congratulate, too, the winners, other finalists and participants for their effort, dedication and high - quality work. the competition, like most activities since the onset of the pandemic, has had to adapt to the extraordinary circumstances we are facing. both organisers and contestants have shown high adaptability. the contestants have had to put all their creativity into a digital content. these circumstances also serve to emphasise how financial education can complement the development of other citizens ’ capabilities, particularly those relating to digital skills. clearly, this competition aside, we have all in the last few months purchased more goods and services, including financial ones, through digital channels. this trend will likely continue in the future. to ensure citizens adapt appropriately to these developments, financial education efforts must run in tandem with digital education ones. otherwise, pockets of financial exclusion ( for instance among our elderly ) could arise, or the risks deriving from uninformed financial purchases could be compounded by those resulting from the use of an unknown digital channel. the videos presented have adequately captured the importance of the concept of responsible finance. this was, indeed, the central slogan of the 2020 financial education day. however, not only have they captured the concept adequately, they have also been able to project it towards one of its most important components : responsible consumption. in this regard, i would like to highlight that exercising this responsibility involves all players. first, customers ( all of us ), as many videos have accurately illustrated, must exercise responsible consumption. this requires us to assess our own available resources and borrowing capacity. in short, the idea is to avoid excessive over - indebtedness, which we know generates highly adverse effects that influence our life decisions over an extended period of time. second, such responsible behaviour must be demanded of financial institutions, which should practice what we call “ responsible lending ”. this entails properly assessing the creditworthiness

of the future transformations in finance. xi it was with this in mind that the acpr released last spring a public consultation document sketching out preliminary avenues for regulating defi. this consultation was widely welcomed and attracted some 40 high - quality responses which in many cases confirmed, and sometimes refined or added to the acpr ’ s assessment. a summary of this feedback was published on 12 october. xii we draw one firm conviction from it : that it is possible and desirable to construct an appropriate regulatory framework for defi, built on three main axes : ( i ) the stipulation of measures on the reliability of the blockchain infrastructures on which defi – or other activities linked to the tokenisation of finance – may develop ; ( ii ) the drawing up of rules, for example on certification, suited to the nature and functioning of smart contracts ; xiii ( iii ) the definition of governance and conduct of business rules to provide adequate protection for users against the risks posed by crypto - assets, which are complex and volatile instruments. of course, these first avenues will be the subject of additional reflection and discussion at the european level ; some of them are also worth expanding on a technical level. this is why the acpr and amf, under the aegis of this fintech forum, will launch in the coming weeks a working group on the certification of smart contracts, an area that attracted strong interest from respondents. 2. climate risk page 5 sur 6 let me turn now to the second frontier – which is actually the first by a clear margin in terms of stakes – climate risk. i would like to thank valerie massondelmotte for the insights she will provide over the course of this morning. the scale of climate risk no longer needs explaining, and its consequences will be decisive for the financial sector and central banks. xiv the banque de france – which has been recognised by ngos as the “ greenest ” central bank in the g20 – was a pioneer in this field in 2017 when it set up the network for greening the financial system ( ngfs ). it is now working on a broad project : the addition of a climate indicator to the financial rating it already attributes to french companies. this indicator will measure the degree to which firms are prepared for and have taken account of the physical and transition risks linked to climate change, and will have both a quantitative and qualitative component. it is being constructed progressively via field testing, and applied to increasingly large samples ( 550 firms