Innovation, Security and Technological Sovereignty: Reconciling Three Imperatives

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would first like to thank the Association Europe-Finances-Régulations for its kind invitation for me to open the debates of this seminar dedicated to the digital sovereignty and operational resilience of the financial sector, which I am very happy to welcome here at the Banque de France. The financial sector currently faces a dual imperative: expanding its range of digital services while ensuring the security of its operations. 

In order to meet both these objectives simultaneously, the most straightforward solution is often to rely on hyperscalers, which offer high-performance infrastructure and services – particularly in the areas of cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) – while providing state-of-the-art security guarantees. However, this choice leaves financial institutions exposed to a new risk: digital dependency. Such dependency may prove costly in the long term. A study commissioned by the association of major French companies for digital technology (CIGREF) estimates that Europeans spend EUR 264 billion each year on US software and cloud servicesⁱ It is also operationally dangerous, as illustrated by recent discussions surrounding the possibility of a “kill switch” affecting US digital services. 

This situation highlights the difficulty of the technological choices that financial actors must face today. The challenge, therefore, is to ensure that innovation, security and sovereignty do not become competing objectives. In this context, I would first like to examine the risks that excessive dependency could pose to the financial sector (I), before discussing the practical responses that financial institutions and public authorities can each find to address them (II).