Fintech in Paris: two authorities and a central bank that experiments
France regulated crypto service providers before the EU did, and the Banque de France ran twelve wholesale central bank digital currency experiments while other central banks were still writing position papers. For a German firm that is the useful thing about Paris: the French authorities have had positions on these questions for years, and the positions are published.
Finance Loop has run an event in Paris on AI in finance, covered at AI in Finance Paris. This page is the French market and the rules behind it.
The ACPR and the AMF, split by activity
France runs a dual supervisory structure. The Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution supervises credit institutions, payment service providers and insurers, and it sits inside the Banque de France, which is unusual and consequential: the prudential supervisor and the central bank share a building and a staff pipeline. The Autorité des marchés financiers supervises investment services and digital asset service providers.
The split is by activity and not by firm size, so a firm offering both payment services and investment services deals with both. For a crypto business the AMF is the relevant authority, and for a payments business the ACPR. A firm that is both, which many are, ends up in front of both, and the two run a joint fintech forum precisely because the boundary is where firms get stuck.
PSAN: France regulated crypto first
Before MiCA, France had its own regime for digital asset service providers, the prestataire de services sur actifs numériques or PSAN, registered with the AMF. The AMF's position on territorial scope was broad: a digital asset service counts as provided in France when the provider has facilities in France, and also when the provider takes the initiative of offering it to customers resident or established in France. That second limb catches a firm with no French presence that markets into France, which is the aggressive reading and the one that set the tone.
MiCA has replaced the regime, and the transition was eased by design. The AMF aligned the PSAN approval requirements with MiCA's crypto-asset service provider requirements, which gave registered firms a simplified route to MiCA authorization. A firm that had done the French work had done most of the European work.
The lesson for anyone choosing a jurisdiction now is that the supervisor's institutional experience matters more than the rulebook, because the rulebook is the same across the EU. The AMF has been examining crypto business models since before MiCA existed. Finance Loop covers the regime at MiCA in Europe and the authorization at the CASP license.
The Banque de France wholesale CBDC experiments
This is where Paris is genuinely ahead, and it is a wholesale story and not a retail one. The Banque de France launched a wholesale CBDC experimentation program in March 2020 and ran twelve experiments across two tranches, publishing its conclusions and the lessons it drew from them.
The substance is the three models it demonstrated for issuing a wholesale CBDC on a distributed ledger. In the interoperability model, the existing central bank system connects to a DLT platform. In the distribution model, the central bank issues onto a DLT operated by someone else. In the integration model, the central bank itself operates on the DLT. The Banque de France's second report covers both tranches, tested across different ledger types, with tokenized finance and cross-border payment improvement as the two application areas.
Three named models with experimental results behind them is a more useful contribution than another consultation paper, and it is the reason the European wholesale settlement discussion has French fingerprints on it. The ECB's own exploratory work on wholesale DLT settlement builds on the same question. Finance Loop covers the European picture at CBDC in Europe and the digital euro at the digital euro.
French tokenization and who does it
France amended its securities law for distributed ledgers earlier than most member states, allowing unlisted securities to be registered in a DLT-based register, and French banks used it. Several large French institutions ran tokenized bond issues and settlement pilots, and the combination of a permissive register and a central bank running settlement experiments gave French issuers somewhere to test both halves of a transaction.
For a German issuer the comparison is with the eWpG route and its BaFin-supervised registrar. The French and German regimes reached similar places with different mechanisms, and a cross-border structure usually has to choose one. Finance Loop covers the German route at issuing tokenized securities in Germany and the Luxembourg one at tokenization in Luxembourg.
Paris Fintech Forum and the Paris events
Paris Fintech Forum is the event that put the city on the European fintech calendar, and the search evidence behind this page is dominated by it: the forum and its editions account for most of what people type around fintech Paris. The AMF and the ACPR run their own joint fintech forum, which is a different proposition: a supervisor-convened meeting where the authorities state positions.
Finance Loop's own presence is AI in Finance Paris, which brought the network's AI and wealth management discussion to the city. The French market is close enough to Frankfurt that members attend in both directions, and the subjects that travel are settlement, tokenization and AI governance.
Paris and Frankfurt after Brexit
Both cities gained from Brexit and they gained different things. Paris attracted banking and markets staff, particularly in trading and investment banking, and several large institutions moved substantial headcount there. Frankfurt gained the supervisory center of gravity: the European Central Bank is there, the ECB's banking supervision is there, and the banks that needed an EU entity under direct ECB supervision located it in Frankfurt.
Amsterdam took the cash equity trading, as covered at fintech in Amsterdam. The honest summary is that London's business was divided up and not replaced, and a firm with European operations now deals with several centers instead of one. Finance Loop covers the German center at Frankfurt and the European AI picture at AI in finance in Europe.
Who regulates fintech in France?
Two authorities, split by activity. The ACPR, which sits inside the Banque de France, supervises credit institutions, payment service providers and insurers. The AMF supervises investment services and digital asset service providers. A crypto business deals with the AMF, a payments business with the ACPR, and a firm doing both deals with both. The two run a joint fintech forum because the boundary between them is where firms have questions.
What was the PSAN regime?
France's national regime for digital asset service providers, registered with the AMF, which predated MiCA. Its territorial scope was broad: a service counted as provided in France when the provider had facilities there and also when the provider took the initiative of offering it to customers resident or established in France. MiCA has replaced it, and the AMF aligned the PSAN requirements with MiCA's so that registered firms had a simplified route to MiCA authorization.
What did the Banque de France's CBDC experiments show?
They demonstrated the operational feasibility of three models for issuing a wholesale central bank digital currency directly on a distributed ledger: an interoperability model connecting the existing central bank system to a DLT, a distribution model where the central bank issues onto a DLT run by someone else, and an integration model where the central bank operates on the DLT itself. The program launched in March 2020 and ran twelve experiments across two tranches, with tokenized finance and cross-border payments as the application areas.
Is Paris or Frankfurt the better EU location?
They are better at different things, and both gained from Brexit. Paris attracted trading and investment banking headcount and has a central bank that runs its own settlement experiments. Frankfurt has the European Central Bank, ECB banking supervision and the derivatives market, which is why banks needing an EU entity under direct ECB supervision located there. A firm's answer depends on which supervisor it needs and where its counterparties are. Amsterdam, meanwhile, took the cash equity trading.
Fintech in Paris and Finance Loop
Finance Loop has brought its AI and wealth management discussion to Paris and keeps the French market in view because the questions overlap: settlement on a ledger, tokenized securities and AI governance are the same problems in both countries with different supervisors attached. Finance Loop is the meeting place where German and French professionals compare what their authorities have accepted. Finance Loop members reach the people who ran the French experiments and the German ones.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the adoption of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, tokenization, stablecoins, and DeFi. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.