François Villeroy de Galhau: Identifying various forms of savings in France Speech by Mr François Villeroy de Galhau, Governor of the Bank of France, at the 25th Parliamentary Conference on Savings, Paris, 2 February 2016. *  *  *  It gives me great pleasure to take part in this 25th Parliamentary Conference on Savings. Before answering your questions, I’d like to share with you an observation followed by a few possible avenues for thought. I  First, the observation, which is that here in France, we have plenty of savings, but not enough goes towards financing investment and hence growth. a) France certainly doesn’t lack savings. It has one of the highest household saving ratios in the euro area, at 15.2% 1 in the third quarter of 2015 compared with 12.7% for single currency bloc. The vast majority of these funds are invested in property; however, nearly 7% of household income is channeled into financial investments. At end-September 2015, close to EUR 4.4 trillion were invested in financial products – that’s twice the size of French GDP. b) That said, French savers are increasingly opting for safer forms of investment, primarily bank deposits and regulated savings products, which are highly liquid, and eurodenominated life insurance products, essentially bond funds: 63% of household financial assets in Q3 2015 compared with 56% in 2006.
These exclusions include companies responsible for large-scale environmental damages, and companies whose business models relies heavily on thermal coal. . Specific central bank challenges in policy portfolio management Aside from the GPFG, Norges Bank, as other central banks, also manages policy portfolios. The Bank’s foreign exchange reserves amounted to USD 64 billion at end-June 2019, divided into a 80% fixed-income portfolio and a 20% equity portfolio. The equity portion is invested in around 1,500 companies worldwide, with a focus on the larger markets and currencies, and managed according to similar principles governing responsible investment in the GPFG. The investment of the major part of the FX reserves is to a high degree determined by our central banking policy objectives. Consequently, we face specific challenges in any extension of responsible investment practices. First, this relates to respecting our legal policy mandate in the investment of our FX portfolio. Second, our investments must take due account of liquidity needs for monetary and financial stability purposes, as well as international financial commitments to the IMF. Third, we need to be vigilant to safeguarding independence and preventing conflicts of interest. And finally, while we are a transparent central bank, we need to strike a considered balance between transparency and remaining needs of confidentiality, to avoid undermining our 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  primary policy objective. International cooperation To conclude, like in other policy areas, there is a crucial role to play for international cooperation also in the field of climate risk.