What is more, the European payment ecosystem has become extremely reliant on non-European players – today the global card schemes, and tomorrow the Bigtechs – with the result that it now has limited control over the management of personal data. In parallel, the rise of crypto-assets and above all of stablecoins means they could potentially try to replace central bank and commercial bank money, even though they offer none of the same guarantees in terms of liquidity, service continuity and neutrality. In light of this situation, Europe needs to develop a payments strategy. I have often pushed for this over the past two years. Recently, we have made decisive progress thanks to the strong involvement of the ECB and the Commission. We now have to put this into action and “deliver” – this is urgent for the next two years. This strategy notably combines three elements: 2/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  1/ European regulation on stablecoins: on 24 September, the European Commission published its MiCA project, which in our view provides a good basis for reconciling innovation with consumer protection and financial stability. 2/ An acceleration on the European central bank digital currency (CBDC), the “digital euro”. We haven’t yet decided on it, but we need to be ready to decide if it becomes necessary, and as soon as it becomes necessary.
First, we appointed a start-up correspondent at the national level [Maurice Oms], and we will soon have start-up correspondents in the regional French Tech capitals. The Banque de France’s innovation laboratory, the Lab, is working with numerous actors in the field. This year, we inaugurated a new site in Singapore, one of the epicentres of the Fintech industry. And recently, Paris was selected alongside Frankfurt to house the European branch of the BIS’s Innovation Hub. At the ACPR, we are doing our utmost to facilitate contact with Fintechs at all stages. First, there is a single point of entry: the Fintech-Innovation Unit. Since 2016, it has met and advised between 100 and 150 project leaders per year, to help them flesh out the initial outline of their project before potentially submitting it for approval. The approval procedure has also been simplified with 1/3  BIS central bankers' speeches  the creation of a digital portal, and we have adapted certain procedures to recent developments: introduction of a streamlined post-Brexit procedure in 2019, and of a simplified procedure for a large number of payment service providers (PSPs) in 2020. On top of this, in our day-to-day supervision, we apply the regulation using a proportional approach. For example, for small establishments, we allow a single individual to hold more than one key positions.