The appointment of the current secretary general of Bercy, Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani as head of the French supervisor of the Stock Exchange was approved on Wednesday by Parliament. She becomes the first president of the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), joining in the world of finance Verena Ross, president of the European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) and Delphine d’Amarzit at the helm of the Paris Stock Exchange. since last year.
The Finance Committees of the two parliamentary chambers came out in favor of his appointment, after hearing the candidate who had been selected by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron on the proposal of the Prime Minister. She is appointed for a five-year term, non-renewable, and succeeds Robert Ophèle. The Senate Finance Committee decided by 20 votes for, 1 vote against and 3 blank or invalid ballots. In that of the National Assembly, 35 votes approved the nomination and 27 rejected it.
Monitor that there is “not an excessive increase in costs”
Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani worked largely in the public sector at the Ministry of Finance, at Matignon as deputy director in the office of Prime Minister François Fillon and in Brussels as financial attaché at the permanent representation of France with the European Union. She also spent part of her career in the private sector, first at the Fédération Nationale du Crédit Agricole (FNCA) as Deputy Managing Director (2007-2010) then as Managing Director of the French Banking Federation ( FBF) between 2014 and 2019.
These back and forth between public authorities and the banking world had raised questions from some parliamentarians about possible risks of conflict of interest and the preservation of the independence of the regulator. This formalization comes against a backdrop of markets marked by stubbornly high inflation, rising interest rates and slowing economic growth.
“The main risk when real yields fall in the face of rising inflation is that there are a certain number of players who move towards riskier products in search of higher yields”, observed Anne-Marie Barbat- Layani during an interview granted at the end of last week to AFP. Faced with rising prices, the supervisor will have to monitor, alongside the banking and insurance sector regulator, that there is “not an excessive increase in costs on the part of financial intermediaries”: “there is no there is no reason for their costs to increase as much as gas prices”.