FRANCE Law and Practice Contributed by: Hubert de Vauplane and Hugo Bordet, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP
are regulated by the French Insurance Code. Several formal conditions must be set out by the insurance company in order to ensure that the agreement is valid and enforceable. When the insured party is a non-professional natural person and subscribes to the policy through an internet platform, a further set of provisions aris - ing from consumer law allows the insured party to withdraw from the insurance agreement within 14 days from the date of subscription. 8.2 Treatment of Different Types of Insurance Each type of insurance (life, annuities, property, etc) is subject to its own set of regulations under the French Insurance Code. The level of supervi - sion of the ACPR is the same for each category of insurance service. It should also be noted that the prudential treatment of insurance undertak - ings by the ACPR does not differ according to the type of insurance service provided by the entity, but rather, according to its compliance with the related prudential rules. 9. Regtech 9.1 Regulation of Regtech Providers Regtech companies provide services related mainly to the compliance of legacy players with prudential regulations (ie, the Solvency II, MiFID II and CRD IV Directives), reporting, risk man - agement, KYC and AML procedures. The provi - sion of these services is not regulated. 9.2 Contractual Terms to Assure Performance and Accuracy As a general rule, regulated entities that choose to delegate functions relating to prudential or organisational regulations must ensure that they are able to assess the performance of the outsourced service by the provider. Regulated
entities remain responsible towards their regu - lator, even if a specific obligation is violated by the external provider rather than themselves. To facilitate such monitoring of external providers, regulated entities often include in their agree - ments provisions which allow them to control the compliance of the external provider with the requirements of the applicable regulation. 10. Blockchain 10.1 Use of Blockchain in the Financial Services Industry Since 2015, most French financial institutions have started to work on implementations of blockchain technology. Several French banks joined the R3 consortium which is developing the private blockchain platform named Corda. Société Générale Forge, a Société Générale subsidiary, has issued digital securities on pub - lic blockchains, such as Ethereum and Tezos. In January 2023, Société Générale Forge refi - nanced tokenised covered bonds by borrow - ing DAI stablecoins from MakerDAO, a market- leading decentralised finance protocol. Société Générale Forge’s security tokens were used as a loan collateral to the benefit of MakerDAO. In addition, various major French non-financial companies are also experimenting with block - chain technology in their own field (eg, block - chain-based food traceability platform, block - chain-based authentication of luxury products). The BdF itself has developed a blockchain- based system to manage SEPA Creditor Iden - tifiers. Overall, French legacy players are all implementing, or thinking about implementing, blockchain technology in their processes or their activity.
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