Banque de France and the IBFI have been cooperating with the CEF across a wide range of topics — from financial supervision and payment systems to organizational learning and climate-related financial risks. What makes this partnership particularly valuable for supporting institutions in South East Europe?

We have a longstanding relationship with our central bank partners from the Western Balkans and Southeastern Europe as they have been playing a key role in the IBFI's strategy since more than a decade now. In view of future EU accession countries (e.g. Montenegro possibly by 2028), strengthening capacity development in this vast and dynamic region - full of potential - is crucial not only for these countries, but also for Central and Western Europe. The more skilled we are, the stronger and more sovereign we will be together as a continent.

At the Banque de France, we are committed to contributing in the best possible way to support these institutions. After all, institutions that learn, adapt, and innovate are ultimately the most resilient. And resilience is essential to the financial systems that central banks are tasked with safeguarding.

The recent workshop on Practical Approaches to Anti-Money Laundering, featuring contributions from Serguei Georges, Digital Finance AML-CTF Expert, On-site Supervision at Banque de France, brought together supervisors and experts to address evolving financial crime risks linked to crypto assets, technological innovation, and geopolitical instability. Why is regional cooperation and peer learning becoming essential for supervisors trying to stay ahead of these risks?

The workshop provided indeed a a practical and supervisory focused exploration of current and emerging challenges in anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT). These risks are borderless: crypto assets operate 24/7 and are widely used in illicit activities. As a result, coordination and cooperation are essential to strengthen financial stability at the regional, European, and global levels. This cooperation should rely on both the sharing of best practices and the development and use of innovative SupTech tools.

Beyond technical expertise, many of today’s challenges for central banks relate to organizational adaptability, leadership, and capacity development. Based on IBFI’s international experience, what skills and institutional capabilities are becoming most important for central banks operating in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing environment?

Central banks, like all public institutions, will need to adapt more rapidly, particularly in response to fast-developing technologies, such as AI, tokenization and crypto assets. Our organizations are not set in stone; we need to remain agile! At the IBFI, pedagogical innovation remains a cornerstone of our strategy. We offer trainings in the field of innovation, digitalization, big data and AI. These courses are very popular, demonstrating a growing interest in these topics.

At the same time, it is critical not to underestimate other themes that have been at the forefront in recent years, such as the integration of climate- and nature related risks into financial risks analysis, as they can increase financial vulnerabilities and threaten financial stability.

The traditional model of technical assistance often focuses on one-way knowledge transfer. From IBFI’s perspective, how does CEF’s emphasis on peer exchange, cross-country collaboration, and building adaptive learning organizations compare with approaches such as IBFI’s Clim’up: Climate and Central Banks card game, which also relies on collective intelligence and interactive learning?

Indeed, CEF’s learning approaches seem to increasingly integrate “bottom-up” offers, such as learning in teams, cross-organizational learning or grassroots innovation initiatives. These methods are more inclusive and collaborative, and therefore often more engaging. Low-tech learning can also be fun: to meet the needs of its partners, the IBFI designed the game “Clim’Up: Climate & Central Banks”. This serious game aims to raise awareness, provide training, and encourage action among professionals from central banks and supervisory authorities on climate-related challenges as they apply to their core activities (or specific mandates such as monetary policy, banking supervision, etc.).

Game sessions are held throughout the year in person, including digital sessions during IBFI’s online courses or upon request. Furthermore, this innovative serious game has been listed in Banque de France’s internal training catalogue and is therefore an integral part of its internal staff training as well. Please reach out if you would like the IBFI to hold a session at your central bank.

We often focus on hard economic data, but BdF and CEF are increasingly collaborating on HR transformation, leadership, and organizational culture. Why are these so-called "soft" skills actually a hard, strategic necessity for building resilient, future-ready central banks?

I believe that continuous improvement, enhanced innovation capacity and better decision making within an organization depend on its employees’ skills. Knowledge sharing amongst us leads to capacity development. In turn, stronger capacities make organizations less vulnerable and more resilient. Enabling public officials to drive innovation and to adapt and to respond positively to change helps our institutions deliver on our mandates more effectively. This creates a virtuous cycle. However, it is also an investment that must be supported by management.

Europe is currently navigating a profound maze of economic, technological, and climate-related pressures. In an era where public trust is hard-won and easily lost, how vital are strong public institutions and international partnerships in safeguarding financial stability and unity?

In a deeply interconnected world, human relations and face-to-face communication remain essential. Partnerships are therefore not just formal agreements; they must be actively nurtured and strengthened through bilateral and multilateral actions, while respecting cultural differences and truly listening to one another.