All flows of funds (expenditure and revenue) by the State and Treasury correspondents, are centralised in real time through a single account held with the Banque de France and managed by AFT. The single account records all financial transactions carried out by public accountants involving nearly 2,500 transaction accounts.
Banque de France leverages this structure to pro vide AFT with a centralised, real-time view of the Single Treasury Account so that AFT can make medium- and long-term forecasts of expenditure and financing in order to optimise the State’s cash management.
AFT also relies on Banque de France staff for the practical organisation of Treasury security auc tions and oversight of the settlement process for securities sold. Acting as an intermediary between AFT and the primary dealers, Banque de France receives the primary dealers’ bids and then com piles an anonymous summary of the orders and presents it to AFT, which uses it to allocate each security.
To carry out this task, Banque de France has been using a dedicated and highly secure system called MAITRE (Mécanisme d’Adjudications Informatisé du Trésor) since 2022. This new system is used by the primary dealers to submit their bids and by AFT to allocate Treasury securities. Banque de France provides this service under the terms of separate agreements with AFT and with each primary dealer.