Denis Beau: Financial inclusion in the digital age - how to make a difference? Panel opening talk by Mr Denis Beau, First Deputy Governor of the Bank of France, at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2019, Singapore, 13 November 2019. * * * Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very happy to be here with you today to introduce this session on financial inclusion and I would like to thank the MAS for offering me the opportunity to contribute to this conference. Inclusion is an essential topic for the financial sector, and more broadly for society as a whole. It’s essential because it’s about making sure everyone can have access to financial services. Because without this access, there is no or only limited ways for people to take part in the formal economy, to build up capital, to buy goods and services, to develop an entrepreneurial project. It is essential because it’s not just about more growth for the financial sector or  even for the economy as a whole, it’s also about reducing inequalities and making sure that more fragile populations,households and businesses, are not left out of economic development. Of course, Fintechs have a huge role to play in financial inclusion. They can provide new solutions, but they also raise new challenges, with new players entering the financial world and new ways of looking at customer relationships.
There is then a risk that the Riksbank would lack the means to manage its stabilisation policy task. On the other hand, if we continue to have very low interest rates at the same time as the growth rate is high, there is a risk of imbalances arising in the housing market. Conducting flexible monetary policy means being prepared to deal with this type of economic shock. The bank is therefore working on further clarifying the principles published in 1999 that explain how the Riksbank’s inflation target will be applied and the considerations that sometimes need to be made between inflation, stability in the real economy and stability in the financial system. This does not involve any fundamental changes in monetary policy strategy but may make it easier to understand how monetary policy is applied. 7/7