The Banque de France's oversight mission, which has been entrusted to it by French law and within the framework of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, consists in:
The Banque de France oversees the financial market infrastructures under its jurisdiction and participates in the system of cooperative oversight of several European and international infrastructures.
The Banque de France also helps to draw up guidelines and standards applicable to financial market infrastructures.
The Banque de France oversees financial market infrastructures within the framework of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) and in accordance with the legislative provisions of the French Monetary and Financial Code:
The Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures or PFMI, published on 16 April 2012 by the Bank for International Settlements’ Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI), and the Technical Committee of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).
These standards cover all financial market infrastructures (payment systems, central securities depositories, securities settlement systems, clearing systems and trade repositories). They comprise 24 principles adopted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, with the aim of strengthening the resilience of the infrastructures that underpin financial stability.
In 2016, they were rounded out by guidelines on the cyber resilience of financial market infrastructures (CPMI-IOSCO guidance on cyber resilience for financial market infrastructures).
In order to give them binding powers, the PFMI were transposed into EU legislation as follows :
As regards cyber resilience, the Eurosystem also applies the following standards:
In January 2014, the ESCB published the "Framework for the assessment of securities settlement systems and links to determine their eligibility for use in Eurosystem credit operations" to ensure the secure delivery of assets pledged as collateral in ESCB credit operations.
Within the Eurosystem, the Banque de France oversees French market infrastructures and participates in the system of cooperative oversight of several European and international infrastructures.
The Banque de France has been designated as the competent authority for oversight of the CORE(FR) systemically important payment system operated by STET. As part of the system of cooperative oversight, it also oversees other Eurosystem SIPS (TARGET2 & TIPS, EURO1, STEP2, Mastercard Europe). At international level, the Banque de France is also part of the group overseeing the CLS international multi-currency system and the SWIFT interbank telecommunications network.
Pursuant to Article 141-4 of the Monetary and Financial Code, the Banque de France is responsible for oversight of French central securities depositories and securities settlement systems, in conjunction with the AMF. The system operated by Euroclear France, ESES (Euroclear Settlement of Euronext Securities) is shared with Euroclear Belgium and Euroclear Netherlands. Therefore, the Banque de France performs its oversight mission for ESES in liaison with the authorities of these two countries. Under the CSDR regulation, EU Member States must appoint one or more competent authorities and relevant authorities for the oversight of SSS –in France, the competent authorities are the AMF and the Banque de France, while the relevant authority is the Eurosystem, represented by the Banque de France. The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) publishes a list of these authorities on its website. Euroclear Group’s overall activities are overseen by all competent authorities for the group as a whole i.e. the authorities of those countries where a Euroclear SSS operates.
Together with the ACPR and the AMF, the Banque de France is one of the authorities responsible for overseeing clearing systems. The Banque de France chairs the EMIR College of the French clearing house LCH SA. It also participates in the EMIR colleges of Euronext Clearing, which has interoperability arrangements with the French CCP, the German CCP Eurex Clearing AG, the British CCP LCH Ltd, and the Dutch CCP EuroCCP.
In accordance with the EMIR regulation, ESMA is directly responsible for accreditation and oversight of trade repositories created in the European Union.
In addition to overseeing infrastructures based in France, the Banque de France takes part in the oversight of several infrastructures that are active at European or international level and whose business affects the French financial system.
The oversight of financial market infrastructures is organised along four axes: