christian noyer : remaining challenges facing the euro area speech with mr christian noyer, governor of the bank of france and chairman of the board of directors of the bank for international settlements, at the foreign correspondents club of japan, tokyo, 10 october 2012. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i would like to start by thanking the foreign correspondents club of japan for this invitation. i am delighted to be here with you today to discuss, here in tokyo before an audience from different backgrounds, the situation in the euro area. for the past few years the euro area has been going through a major crisis. this crisis has multiple causes that call into question the institutional foundations of monetary union. i strongly believe that the different roots of this crisis have now been thoroughly analysed and are being effectively addressed. the main challenge facing the euro area is to pursue the efforts underway to return to balanced budgets, regain competitiveness and growth and strengthen economic and monetary union. 1. what is the situation in the euro area? in early 2012 the outlook seemed encouraging. confidence appeared to be steadily returning, the decisions taken, in particular the very long - term refinancing operations – had calmed the markets. nevertheless, pressures quickly mounted again, reflecting especially the difficulties experienced by greece and spain. it became clear that the situation was still precarious, and that the solutions hitherto adopted in the euro area had to be enhanced in order to be truly lasting. today there are a number of positive signs : bond market activity is reasonably buoyant, yields of peripheral countries have declined slightly and stock markets have picked up. however, two major weaknesses persist : – financial markets are highly fragmented within the euro area and sovereign yield spreads remain substantial ; – growth is weak and, here too, there are major disparities within the euro area. in the second quarter, growth stood at - 0. 2 % for the area, after stagnating in the first quarter. germany posted the highest growth, at 0. 3 %, and portugal the weakest, at – 1. 2 %. we are still expecting growth to recover very gradually next year. before discussing how to address these problems, we have to correctly analyse the causes. in my opinion, three mutually reinforcing causes gave rise to the euro area crisis. 1. the main origin of the crisis lies in the lack of fiscal discipline on the part of most member states. while these countries had had to make considerable consolidation efforts

other regulated or unregulated entities managing the platform. examples include marketplaces ( e. g. deposit marketplaces ) or even e - commerce portals distributing financial services, which are ancillary to their core business ; big techs play a significant role in this space. many authorities and stakeholders are addressing this issue, striving to increase their knowledge of this important phenomenon, raising interest from different perspectives. today i want to focus on one perspective : the microprudential one. the eba published a first report4 in september 2021, providing an initial taxonomy of the main business models observed. a crucial finding of this analysis is that regulators and supervisors do not yet have sufficient information on platforms and on their relationships with banks. thus, properly and systematically mapping the use of digital platforms by supervised entities and, more generally, the platformization of the financial ecosystem, are indeed essential. in a business model perspective, platforms can help financial intermediaries, specifically the traditional ones, in providing new products and services to their clients and / or increasing their customer experience, thus representing a way to support the viability and sustainability of business models. 5 in the meantime, the reliance on digital this paradigm is usually associated with the use of the open api, which allows an application to have access to the data of financial intermediaries and which therefore allows the exchange of information between different operators ( financial intermediaries, technical suppliers, other non - financial parties ) the functioning of the ecosystem is even more complex due to the presence of tpps with the freedom to provide services without establishment, located in other jurisdictions than the european union, and of big tech companies that are currently acting as purely technical service providers, but that might decide to have a bigger role in the financial ecosystem. https : / / www. eba. europa. eu / sites / default / documents / files / document _ library / publications / reports / 2021 / 1019865 / eba % 20digital % 20platforms % 20report % 20 - % 20210921. pdf for example, digital platforms facilitate access to financial services, the matching of customer preference ( e. g. in terms of ‘ search for convenience ’ ), support economies of scale, and leverage on network effects, reducing the need for physical premises. digital platforms also allow innovative business models to be developed that should be monitored and understood by the supervisors. platforms to promote and distribute services introduces strong interdependencies