* **  Page 9 of 9 We have just celebrated the 25th anniversary of the ECB, and next year we will mark the 10th anniversary of the SSM within the ECB. This is certainly not a time for complacent celebrations; it remains a time for active vigilance. But these milestones are an opportunity to recognise that, throughout years of severe international crises, the European financial system, and particularly the French one, is increasingly resilient. The ACPR is committed to contributing further to this. I will now hand the floor to Jean-Paul Faugère, Vice-Chairman of the ACPR, to speak about the insurance sector. i  The slight decrease observed in 2022 results from lower Tier 1 capital, which was impacted among other things by the lower valuation of insurance subsidiaries due to the rise in interest rates, compounded with an increase in risk-weighted assets stemming from a dynamic trend in customer loans. ii Observatoire du financement des entreprises, Le financement des entreprises dans un contexte de crises, 30 May 2023
The task, for Hong Kong as for all jurisdictions, will be to translate high-level principles and universal standards into local practice, and to develop the skills to carry them out. This is an enormous challenge, but there are reasons for confidence in Hong Kong's case. We have had a largely positive experience in introducing Basel II into our supervisory system, thanks in no small part to the hard work of both HKAB and HKIB. Regulatory reform is driven not just by objective circumstances but also by changing public expectations. This brings me to my third observation: that banks and financial institutions (and, it might be added, regulators) are now operating in a more sceptical, more demanding, even hostile environment. We see this around the world, and, particularly in the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse, we have seen it in Hong Kong. There is also discontent and anxiety locally that pre-dates the crisis – for example, about access to banking services, about the risks of new technology – that result partly from the changing business landscape and partly from changing expectations. We must expect this trend to continue, and it will be necessary for the banking industry and the regulator to take more and more account of wider public opinion, and to tackle areas of concern.