Accordingly, it is clearly important that credit institutions should actively pursue the work they have done so far. In this respect, I think it is safe to say that French banks operating in the international arena are making every effort to ready themselves for 2006. 3.3  New accounting standards should foster international harmonisation and promote greater financial transparency  The introduction of new accounting standards is a major undertaking for companies in general and for credit institutions in particular. The aim of this project is highly ambitious, namely to arrive at worldwide standards that can improve financial security and accounting transparency. This is necessary to restore confidence in financial markets. At the internal level, credit institutions must quickly adapt their information systems to these new requirements. However, there are in-depth discussions at present about the draft standards applicable to financial instruments. We have taken part in these discussions and advocated caution, in particular, in view of the strong temptation to give precedence to the markto-market and mark-to-model approaches, which are more sensitive to calculation parameters than to the actual situation of the reporting entity, with the result that earnings and equity likely to become abnormally volatile. I hope that the outcome of these discussions will lead to accounting procedures that take into consideration the realities of credit institutions’ operations and business practices. BIS Review 32/2003  3  As you are aware, the quality of the accounting rules applicable by banks is of fundamental importance for supervisors.
Jean-Claude Trichet: Economic and financial review in France Presentation of the 2002 Annual Report of the French Banking Commission (Commission Bancaire) by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the French Banking Commission, Paris, 2 June 2003. * 1. *  *  2002 showed that French credit institutions were capable of withstanding a less favourable economic and financial environment  Measured on a parent-company basis, the aggregate net income of French credit institutions in 2002 was similar to 2001’s figure of nearly 18 billion euro. This result is all the more remarkable because it was achieved despite negative cyclical developments. Once again, domestic retail banking was the mainstay of profitability. 1.1  Slower economic growth and high equity market volatility formed the backdrop for 2002  Although the world economy picked up slightly in 2002, expanding by 3.0 per cent compared with 2.3 per cent in 2001, it was much more sluggish than in 2000, when growth came in at 4.7 per cent. Furthermore, in the euro area, GDP growth continued to slow, decelerating from 3.4 per cent in 2000 to 1.4 per cent in 2001 and 0.8 per cent in 2002. As in 2001, France’s economy grew slightly faster than average, with 1.2 per cent. Sector-related problems fostered a climate of uncertainty that affected growth. They resulted chiefly from the bursting of the Internet bubble, developments in telecommunications, transport and energy, and entrenched geopolitical tensions in Latin America and the Middle East.