presentation of the 2020 annual report of the autorite de controle prudentiel et de resolution ( acpr ) press conference, friday 28 may 2021 speech by francois villeroy de galhau, governor of the banque de france chairman of the acpr ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be with you again for the presentation of the 2020 annual report of the autorite de controle prudentiel et de resolution ( acpr – prudential supervision and resolution authority ), in the company of the new vice - chairman, jean - paul faugere, dominique laboureix, secretary general of the acpr, and alain menemenis, president of the sanctions committee. i would first like to pay tribute to the staff at the acpr – more than 1, 050 men and women whose professionalism is exemplary and recognised – who have worked especially hard, both on - site and remotely, to monitor closely the effects of the economic crisis on financial stability. exactly a year ago, when we were just at the start of the covid crisis, i pointed out to you, in this exact same setting, how vigilant we were being and how confident i was, both in the competence of our supervisor and in the resilience of the financial system. looking back, we haven ’ t done too badly at all : at this stage, the financial risks are, on the whole, under control, thanks to resilient financial institutions with solid fundamentals ( i ). this reassuring picture should not, however, mask the short - term challenges of the emergence from the crisis, and the more structural challenges that our financial institutions will face over the coming decade ( ii ). i. financial institutions have proved more resilient than expected during the covid crisis just a short word, to start with, on the situation for insurers, which jean - paul faugere will go into in greater depth. despite a fall in profits, france ’ s insurance sector is holding up well and remains the leading market in europe in terms of balance sheet size : insurers have managed to keep their solvency ratios on the whole solid, at around 243 %, which is one of the highest levels in europe. but we need to be careful not to become complacent : the solvency of insurers is still a major focus of attention. consequently, as one of its control priorities, the acpr will carry out reinforced supervision in

up a central bank that was capable, because it was trusted by the french people, of offering an “ elastic ” money supply, to use the economic jargon, that is, of adjusting the money supply to suit the needs of the economy. in this way, the foundations for an active lender - of - last - resort policy were laid very early, providing a means to combat financial crises and thus support the economy. in this timeline of measures to preserve monetary stability since 1800, 1848 marks a turning point because, with the opening of branches in bordeaux and eight other french cities, the banque de france became the central bank for the entire country, for three reasons : first, it unified local payment systems by creating a single nationwide multilateral settlement system through its branch network. banknotes then circulated over all the french territory with the same value, and the ability to transfer money between branches slashed and standardised the cost of wire transfers for economic agents. second, it could perform in each financial centre a single supervision of what was essentially local banking businesses, greatly lessening the financial instability that had plagued france off - and - on between the fall of the empire and the revolution of 1848. 7 harnessing its in - depth knowledge of business and banking communities, which was shared between each branch and the head office, the bank was able to implement prompt corrective actions or step in to ensure the recovery or resolution of struggling financial institutions. faure, edgar, 1977, la banqueroute de law, 17 juillet 1720, paris, gallimard “ trente journees qui ont fait la france ” for a complete description of the law system, and courtois, 1875, previously cited, on attempts to set up a central bank before the banque de france. 6 sargent, thomas and francois r. velde, 1995, macroeconomic features of the french revolution, journal of political economy, vol. 103, pp. 474 - 518 7 see bignon, vincent and marc flandreau, 2018, the other way : a narrative history of the bank of france. in sveriges riksbank and the history of central banking, edited by r. edvinsson, t. jacobson and d. waldenstrom, cambridge : cambridge university press, pp. 206 - 241. third, 1848 heralded the beginning of a single monetary policy for the entire country, with the same policy rate applied in all cities. in this way,