The powers and governance of the three authorities could also be adjusted to further improve their efficiency, but I do not think it would be useful in the short term to radically change the existing architecture. Greater changes – which could also bring supervision and resolution closer together – could be considered once Brexit has occurred and the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union are well established. With regard to Brexit, I would like to reiterate a requirement which, in our view, is obvious: clearing operations in euro, for all those of systemic importance, must be located where the supervision of the Eurosystem can be exercised effectively. And after Brexit, we do not see how this could be in London. 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  II. The 2016 results of the French banking and insurance sectors In 2016, in a context marked by the low level of interest rates, the major French banks showed solid performances and compared favourably with their European counterparts. Their profitability increased, with their net profit (group share) amounting to EUR 24.3 billion, up 3.1% over the year. Moreover, the French banking system was able to strengthen its higher quality capital, while maintaining the financing to the economy. The ratio of core capital now stands at 13.2% of riskweighted assets, up 60 bp from 2015; this represents a EUR 164 billion increase in capital since 2008 for the major banks, i.e. more than a two-fold increase: an increase of more than 120% in less than 10 years.
Management of the gold and FX reserves shall also help to safeguard the Riksbank’s financial independence, which means rates of return must be healthy. The Riksbank has decided to consider how much the assets contribute to the FX reserves’ overall climate footprint.32 This follows the view of the NGFS on climate risks as a source of financial risk. In our most recent analysis of the FX reserves’ composition, the greenhouse gas intensity of the assets was, for the first time, a factor in the calculations together with rates of return and risk. Chart 3 shows how greenhouse gas emissions vary in different countries. The Riksbank has elected to only invest in Australian states and Canadian provinces with the same or lower greenhouse gas intensities than the respective country as a whole. For this reason, bonds issued by certain Australian states and Canadian provinces were sold off in 2019, see Chart 4. 30  This is the market valuation as of 31 December 2019, see the Riksbank (2020). See Mauderer (2020) for a discussion of this. 32 See also Flodén (2019) for a discussion of this. 31  13 [18]  Chart 3. Emissions of greenhouse gases in different countries. Emissions as a share of GDP 0,5  0,5 In the foreign exchange reserves  0,4  Potential holdings  0,4  0,3  0,3  0,2  0,2  0,1  0,1  0  0  Note.