presentation of the 2018 annual report of the autorite de controle prudentiel et de resolution ( acpr ) press conference of 28 may 2019 speech by francois villeroy de galhau, governor of the banque de france, chairman of the acpr press contact : mark deen ( mark. deen @ banque - france. fr ). page 1 of 5 ladies and gentlemen, [ slide 1 ] i am pleased to welcome you to the presentation of the 2018 annual report of the autorite de controle prudentiel et de resolution ( acpr ), alongside bernard delas, vicechairman of the acpr, remi bouchez, president of the sanctions committee, and edouard fernandez - bollo, secretary general of the acpr. in 2018, the women and men of the acpr continued to work tirelessly to safeguard financial stability, in a context marked by the uncertainty – and at times the emergency – of brexit. i would like to thank them for their work. this morning, i shall focus on a topical issue – the profitability of banks and insurers in france and europe [ slide 2 ]. * * i. the profitability of french banks and insurers remains resilient the return on equity of france ’ s largest banks edged up by 0. 4 percentage points to 6. 7 % in 2018, i coming back in line with 2015 ’ s level. the maintenance of profitability levels needs to be viewed alongside the sharp rise in bank capital. french banks have strengthened their solvency and are now more robust. they have more than tripled their capital since the crisis. in parallel, they have raised their core capital ratios ( cet1 ) by nearly 8 percentage points since 2008, from an average of 5. 8 % to 13. 6 % in 2018 [ slide 3 ]. french banks ’ profitability is in line with the euro area average and well above that of their german counterparts. at an international level, only the us banks stand out as having an roe in excess of 10 %. french banks have come a long way in the past ten years, in a demanding economic, financial and regulatory environment. we need to be wary, therefore, about using two misleading points of reference, the first of which consists in comparing current roes to precrisis levels – when they were clearly too high – and the second in focusing on the cost of equity. apparently, the cost of equity

we have with the banks. i would therefore also like to thank the representatives of the supervised institutions for the mutual trust we have built up together. i am thinking in particular of the risk directorates. in the vast majority of cases, we work in a calm and constructive manner, in the common interest of a more resilient european banking sector. this is an important asset. given the difficult challenges that lie ahead in the very near future, in europe and around the world, we will need more than ever to rely on these relationships of trust. it's now time for me to conclude. i would like to thank you for your attention, both on site and remotely, and to thank the various speakers for the quality of the debates and presentations. let us continue to work together to ensure that the ssm remains the world - class supervisor that we have built : an asset for a resilient and competitive 2 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches european banking sector, a token of confidence for european citizens and, last but not least, a support for our common currency and european integration as a whole. thank you all very much. 3 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches