Investment Officer

Despite challenging market conditions, PwC Luxembourg, the biggest professional services firm in the grand duchy, on Tuesday reported an 11 percent increase in net revenues for its latest fiscal year, pushing its turnover “comfortably’ past the half-billion euro mark. 

For Luxembourg, the consultancy firm reported a turnover of 543.3 million euro for its fiscal year ended 30 June, buoyed by 13.9 percent growth in advisory services, in particular for alternative investments. Assurance sales rose 10.6 percent and tax by 9 percent.

The future has never been more uncertain, and that has more to do with the climate than the business cycle, argues Paul De Grauwe, one of Belgium’s top economists. “Not inflation, but climate is the biggest challenge we face today,” he said. “The entire market system could perish.”

European Depositary Bank, a Luxembourg-based provider of banking, depositary and custody solutions part of the Apex Group, on Monday said it has been appointed by Mikro Kapital Management S.A., a Luxembourg-based alternative lender and a leading microfinance and sustainable investor in emerging markets, for the delivery of paying agent services for the firm’s new bond issuances.

Demand for instant payments, an area in which certain corners of Europe have lagged other parts of the globe, is, according to PwC, disrupting Luxembourg’s payments ecosystem, as well as putting strain on the existing infrastructure. At the same time, innovation in B2B payments the new frontier of payments.

These changes in payments and others are taking place against the hugely increased profitability of the Luxembourg banking market, which collectively recorded a 2021 net profit of 30.8 percent.

Jean-Paul Servais has been appointed as chair of the board of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, or Iosco, the international policy forum for securities regulators. He will replace Ashley Alder, former CEO of the Hong Kong  Securities and Futures Commission who will become chair of UK regulator FCA in January.

Luxembourg’s financial institutions need to swiftly make significant changes in order to keep up with the changing labour market if they want to continue attracting top talent, Luxembourg for Finance said in a new report on the job market.

Asset services provider Apex Group has announced a collaboration with BlackRock’s eFront to provide its ESG data consulting services to investors in private markets.

Luxembourg-based Cube Infrastructure Managers has agreed to acquire Firstcolo Datacenters GmbH, a Frankfurt-based data centre business providing colocation, dedicated servers, managed services and private cloud solutions, for an undisclosed amount.

Firstcolo owns two-state-of-the-art “Tier III+” data centres in Frankfurt (photo), both of which are powered by green electricity. 

Luxembourg’s bank clients remained conservative in 2021, keeping nearly all - or 80 percent - of their assets in savings, even when interest rates are low, a survey conducted jointly by the Luxembourg bank association ABBL and financial regulator CSSF shows.

This survey showed a significant increase in deposits and in the number of loans granted. It also confirmed underlying trends such as the increasing use of online services. The figures for employment and the number of customers remain stable. 

To preserve financial stability , EU supervisory agencies for energy markets and for financial markets on Tuesday said they will intensify their cooperation and improve their exchange of information, seeking to avoid potential market abuse in Europe’s energy and derivatives markets.