Speech by Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani, AMF Chair - New Year address to the financial centre - Thursday 16 January 2025

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Distinguished guests,
Dear colleagues and friends

First of all, I would like to wish you, your loved ones and the institutions you represent all very best for 2025.

I am delighted to be with you again for this traditional New Year's address by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers to the financial community.

It is the perfect opportunity to present the prospects for our ecosystem. In a context that I would cautiously describe as ‘unsettled’, today is, more than ever, the time to reaffirm the AMF's commitment as regulator to a well-regulated, useful, honest, resilient and competitive financial system that serves the financing of the economy and its essential transformations.

This year, the AMF is innovating by holding its New Year's address in the magnificent building of the Monnaie de Paris, and I would like to thank its CEO and his staff for their warm welcome.

We are fortunate to be able to meet in this building, that is so full of history and meaning, and to be inspired by the spirit of the place. It is a place of excellence, that combines tradition and modernity, a place that has seen so many eras go by, so many dramas and so many profound changes: let us mention just one – the transition to the euro, for which the Monnaie minted all the coins.

This place is a living tribute to the builders of our country. Their excellence has never wavered, as demonstrated by those who achieved the feat of rebuilding Notre-Dame de Paris. In these sometimes gloomy times, I think it is worth reminding ourselves that we are capable of the best.

Let us extend this tribute to other builders: those who have made France a major player on the financial stage. We are their heirs. The first wish I would like to express to you today is that we do our utmost to live up to this legacy, to make it bear fruit and to silence the Cassandras.

That may sound optimistic. Because yes, there are headwinds. After a complicated 2024, the start of this year is marked by a great deal of uncertainty, both economic and political.

It is up to each of us to defend our strengths and convictions. If we look at financial history, others have done it before us, in no easier circumstances. So, let us look to the future and accept our responsibilities without hesitation.

I have four wishes for 2025:

• that the attractiveness of the Paris financial centre will remain a priority;
• that the Savings and Investment Union will become a reality;
• that our work to promote financial stability and protect retail investors will be effective;
• and that the AMF's skills and resources will be consolidated.

1. First of all, it is my wish that the attractiveness of Paris as a financial centre will remain a priority for the public authorities and for all of us.

The work of the builders of our financial strength, like the consensus that formed around Brexit, is in danger of withering away in the face of other concerns. That would be a serious mistake, because the success is tangible, and it is bringing considerable benefits to our economy as a whole.

As everyone can see, 2024 was not a good year for the Paris financial centre. The fundamentals remain good, with an innovative, diversified and attractive financial ecosystem, very active investors and successful issuers. But, for the first time in a very long time, as a result of the uncertainties, the Paris stock market underperformed the European and world markets.

More generally, the gap between the United States and the rest of the world is widening. The structural phenomenon of listing attrition is continuing to erode the market, and not just in Paris, while private financing is expanding. This phenomenon should give us cause for concern, as the markets play a fundamental role in revealing prices and financing companies.

We must therefore continue to take steps to preserve and develop our comparative advantages. In this respect, we must welcome the law of 13 June 2024 aimed at improving the financing of companies and the attractiveness of France, known as the ‘Holroyd law’, which brings our stock market law into line with the best standards.

In addition to its support for this significant text, the AMF has made, and will continue to make, its own contribution:

• We do this first and foremost by fully executing our role as an exacting regulator, which is a decisive factor in attractiveness.
  I therefore state to you my wish that the legislative proposals we have drawn up to strengthen the effectiveness of our enforcement work will be favourably received by Parliament this year. 
  I also hope that the work being done with the National Financial Public Prosecutor's Office will enable us to put a stop to the damaging actions of international insider networks which, no doubt in association with organised crime, use the major financial centres, including our own, to launder money. I call on all financial market participants to be extremely vigilant in the face of the actions of these criminals, who do not hesitate to hack into their information systems when they are vulnerable, or to try to corrupt their employees in order to obtain inside information.
• We are committed, steadfastly and resolutely, to enhancing the attractiveness of listing. Last year, we decided to make the tranche reserved for retail investors during an IPO optional. Without this decision, which was implemented with great speed, Planisware, which was one of the successful IPOs of 2024, would not have chosen the French market.
• We have also committed to stop goldplating European legislation, except in exceptional cases where the protection of retail savers is at stake. And we are keeping to this. Allow me to give you two examples:
  • Firstly, the European Long-Term Investment Fund (ELTIF) regime. As announced, we are applying the European standards, and nothing but the European standards. To date, France is home 14 out of the 49 ELTIF funds authorised in Europe, putting it in second place. It is now up to the Paris financial centre’s asset managers to seize this opportunity and make this product a real success.
  • Second example: at the end of last year we decided to comply with ESMA guidelines on funds’ names using ESG terms. This was not easy for the AMF, because we had a national framework to which we had reason to be attached. We have decided to give precedence to the European framework and we will continue to favour this approach.

I therefore urge the public authorities to stay the course and to continue to support the Paris financial centre. But let us be clear: the strength of our financial centre lies in the mobilisation of all its participants. When it comes to making your own choices, whether you want to launch an investment fund, list your shares, locate your staff or develop a new business: follow the fine tradition of the builders of the Paris financial centre.

2. My second wish that I want to make today is that the Savings and Investment Union will finally become a reality in Europe

• For more than a decade, Europe has been aware of the need to create a genuine capital markets union. In June 2023, the AMF called for this key issue to be revived in its strategic guidelines.
  Today, the diagnosis is clear. The economic and financial decoupling of Europe and the United States, and the decline in European competitiveness, are rightly of concern to economic players. The weaker performance of our markets is already the direct result of investors' growing doubts about Europe's competitiveness. The valuation gap is widening, and and will widen further if we do not act. This is now an existential risk, as Mario Draghi has pointed out. It must serve as a catalyst for Europe to step up its efforts to develop its capital markets and its financial independence.
  The good news is that Europe has a number of strong assets with which to meet this challenge: abundant savings, robust investors and financial intermediaries, a real drive for innovation and competent regulation. Fortunately, we are now seeing a high level of mobilisation, with a number of key reports setting out the diagnosis and priority proposals. I would refer in particular to the ESMA report published last spring. Its 20 recommendations include proposals that the AMF has long supported, such as the promotion of direct European supervision and the relaunch of the European securitisation market.

I therefore hope that in 2025, this essential project will get the political backing it needs to succeed.

• We must ensure that it clearly contains the goal of simplification, something which has become self-evident at European level. 
  The Capital Markets Union must not be a union of standards and constraints.
  Regulators must be at the forefront of this cultural revolution: we must be prepared to shake up our habits and stop hiding behind stacks of laws.
  But, to achieve this, European supervision is essential. It is important to understand that without European supervision, there will be no real simplification. Today, the lack of convergence in supervisory practices and competition between supervisors creates such risks, particularly as regards investor protection, that we cannot be content with principled standards.
  Businesses are one of the main areas of application for this goal of simplification, but we must not forget the distribution of financial instruments.
  Simplifying the client journey has become a necessity. However, simplification does not mean less protection, it means better protection!
  Whatever the future of the retail investment strategy, we need to get back to our objectives: transparent and justified fees, competent, professional and suitable advice, given in the sole interest of the client, accessible to all and based on a genuine relationship of trust and proximity. We are still seeing too many questionable situations.

Pending the progress I am calling for in terms of European supervision, from now on we will now take a more aggressive stance against bad products 'imported' with the European passport, the devastating effects of which we are unfortunately all too aware of through investor complaints.

There is also a need for simplification and greater coherence in sustainable finance. This is not a question of abandoning our goals. Let us make no mistake about it: whatever the fashion, everyone can now see that our house is on fire and that we cannot continue to turn a blind eye.

What gives me cause for optimism, however, is that our research shows that listed companies are increasingly integrating sustainable development and transition objectives into their governance and strategy.

Of course, the context is complicated: international differences are likely to persist, if not widen. And the methodology used raises questions.

Europe has adopted a number of texts, in particular the Directives on Corporate Sustainability Reporting (CSRD) and Due Diligence (CS3D), which raise a number of questions.

The President of the European Commission has indicated that these texts will be amended rapidly. In this context, the AMF will take a pragmatic and comprehensive approach to the implementation of the CSRD, which has not yet been transposed by 14 European countries.

However, this does not mean we will be inactive in countering greenwashing. Sustainable investment constitutes a genuine expectation on the part of investors, to which professionals must provide reliable answers. Green finance is now one of the themes targeted in our traditional inspections, and we no longer hesitate to move up a gear to the enforcement phase, as we did last May.

Finally, the Savings and Investment Union must be a union of innovation. We need to regain the spirit of the Lisbon Summit!

Innovation is at the heart of a dynamic financial sector. Providing support is in the AMF's DNA.

This year, we are implementing the MiCA Regulation, which provides a clear regulatory framework tailored to the specific characteristics of the crypto-asset world: Europe is ahead of the game, and that gives us the upper hand.

However, there is one pressing issue that needs to be addressed: the supervision of global and cross-border crypto platforms. Here, only direct European supervision will be effective. That is why, we, together with the Governor of the Banque de France, we recently published an opinion piece calling for this development, which is within reach and would constitute a first concrete step towards European supervision.

3. My third wish is that our efforts in the area of financial stability and retail investor protection will be effective 

• Financial stability is an increasingly important mission for market regulators. 
  The reason is simple: non-bank finance now accounts for half of global finance. The role of market regulators is therefore central. 
  Major international projects have been carried out and are planned. We will implement these pragmatically at the European level, as part of the European Commission's work on the macroprudential framework for asset management, in particular by promoting the consolidated supervision of major asset managers.
  At the national level, in 2025, we will work with the Banque de France to conduct a cross-sector stress test, to better identify the interactions between banking and non-banking sectors, and their implications for financial stability. 
  On another front, we will be particularly vigilant about the risks associated with cyber security. All the regulators' heat maps show this risk in very bright red. In Europe, the DORA Regulation, which comes into force in 2025, gives us a very useful framework for action.
• Protecting investors is the AMF's top priority. Our efforts, which I will not go into in full here, are based on a dual approach: understanding and protecting.
  • First, understanding. The savings landscape is changing fast: the phenomenal success of crypto-assets and ETFs, fractional investments, the return of complex products, the increasingly important role of social media and influencers, new marketing methods and gamification are all trends that are gathering pace.
    Investors are also changing rapidly. Since 2020, we have seen the arrival of more than one million new retail investors have entered the French financial markets. This has led to a rejuvenation of the investor base. However, we need to understand their specific characteristics in order to adapt our efforts.
  • Then, protecting. We have begun to roll out a financial education strategy dedicated to these new investors. The innovative campaign we launched last October: ‘The Mysteries of Investipolis’ has been a big hit with young people on social media.
    We will be monitor the impact of artificial intelligence on investor protection. The obligation to act in the best interests of clients must remain central and be integrated into the AI systems used by financial market participants.
    
    Finally, I must mention the upsurge in financial scams. With 15% of French people believing they have been the victim of a financial scam, the phenomenon is massive and particularly alarming. The amounts lost are considerable for those who let themselves be taken in: €29,500 on average!

In 2025, we will continue to work with all the relevant authorities in order to combat this scourge.

4. My fourth and final wish is for the AMF's strength and resources to continue to be reinforced, to enable it to engage fully in supporting these objectives

We are the regulator of the European Union's leading financial centre.

To meet these challenges effectively, the changes I have described will require us to constantly adapt our tools and skills.

We have obtained additional budgetary resources in 2024, and we hope that this will also be the case in 2025. It goes without saying that, For our part, of course, we will continue the work on improving efficiency  and management that I have started since my appointment, with the support of the our Secretary General, Sébastien Raspiller. He and his staff are doing a great deal of work in this area, under the benevolent and demanding eye of a Board that was completely renewed at the beginning of 2024, and whose exceptional skills and dynamism I welcome.

The AMF has succeeded in implementing an innovative and successful data strategy. We want to be just as effective when it comes to artificial intelligence.

We are already using AI in the field of market supervision, with results that show its full potential in terms of operational efficiency, enforcement policy and retail investor protection.  We have therefore set ourselves the target of defining our artificial intelligence strategy in 2025.

We also intend to continue our transformation, by becoming a more efficient and transparent authority that better meets the expectations of all our stakeholders. As promised, we have therefore introduced an annual perception survey. With an overall score of over 4 out of 5, the results of the first annual survey, carried out in 2024, show a very encouraging improvement on the last survey of this type carried out in 2022. Above all, these surveys help us to continue to make progress.

In 2025, the AMF plans to improve its methods of consulting the financial community.

We will start very quickly to support a very important project for the Paris financial centre – the move to ‘T+1’ for settlement. In order to help the Paris financial centre move into this new phase, we have decided to set up a working group with the Banque de France and the Directorate General for the French Treasury to facilitate coordination between the players in the Paris financial centre and the work being done at European level.

Last but not least, we want to remain an attractive authority for our employees. They are the AMF's great strength, and it is up to us to maintain and develop this important foundation. I am very pleased with the excellent quality of the social dialogue at the AMF. I made a commitment to this when I was appointed, and we were able to sign a number of important social agreements in 2023 and 2024, despite an exceptionally tight budget.

In 2025, the programme will be dense and engaging. But, the builders of finance are not afraid of hard work: you can count on our commitment, just as I hope I can count on yours.

Thank you for your attention.