FRENCH FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FACED WITH THE COVID-19 CRISIS

Despite a sharp decline in earnings, which reflects the impact of the crisis, French banks and insurance companies are proving to be highly resilient. This observation, evidenced by the situation of financial institutions at the end of 2020, confirms our confidence but does not lessen our vigilance: the economic environment is fraught with great uncertainty and we are very closely monitoring financial sector risk developments. French banks are at this stage a key driver of the solutions, and not the cause of a crisis which is first health-related and second economic, but not financial. This generally reassuring situation is obviously in no way a call for a status quo. Banks and insurers are experiencing it: the Covid-19 crisis is acting as an accelerator of their changes in response to the major structural challenges they are facing.