Viable financial markets are crucial to a flourishing economy, growth and prosperity. How much flexibility do they need to create scope for innovation and competition? On the other hand, how much regulation is needed to ensure stability? The LOEWE research centre SAFE – Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, which is located in Goethe University Frankfurt’s House of Finance, investigates the requirements of an optimal regulatory framework for the financial markets and their protagonists. Scholars from the fields of finance, micro- and macroeconomics, marketing, sociology and law focus first and foremost on the situation in Europe – also drawing on new, independently compiled data. SAFE’s second pillar, the Policy Center, engages in a constant dialogue with members of governments and parliaments in Berlin, Brussels and Wiesbaden. The objective of the Policy Center is to give independent, research-based policy advice and, thus, to contribute to a sustainable, stability- and growth-oriented policy.