Investment Officer

Asset services provider Apex Group said it has been appointed by Israel-based OurCrowd, a global venture capital investment platform, to provide fund services and to help attract investors in Australia and New Zealand. Formed in 2013, OurCrowd is Israel’s most active venture capital firm, having deployed over 1.8 billion dollars in committed capital to date. 

Fondsnieuws, the Dutch-language sister publication of InvestmentOfficer.lu, on Thursday was renamed as Investment Officer as it migrated to a new website, investmentofficer.nl, in order to better serve its subscribers in the Netherlands. With this migration, Investment Officer becomes a true Benelux media service for investment professionals, operating with a single brand for news and info services in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

The EU’s financial supervisory authorities on Thursday warned consumers that many crypto-assets are highly risky and speculative. The authorities - including the bodies that supervise securities markets and the banking sector, set out key steps consumers can take to ensure they make informed decisions.

In what observers labelled as “dovish tightening”, the Federal Reserve on Wednesday evening raised interest rates for the first time since 2018 and flagged that six more rate hikes are coming later this year. Equity markets rallied but with an inverting yield curve, Treasuries reflect hesitation.

Beyond the suffering and humanitarian crisis from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the entire global economy will feel the effects of slower growth and faster inflation, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.

“We live in a more shock-prone world,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva (pictured) recently said at a press briefing in Washington. “And we need the strength of the collective to deal with shocks to come.”

There are a number of important events expected this week that will affect investors. The most important is undoubtedly the decision of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) on US interest rates on Wednesday.

European emerging-market bond funds pose limited contagion risk to the broader financial system in light of the conflict in Ukraine, rating agency Fitch said on Monday. The funds have low exposure to Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which should limit the risk of a large increase in redemptions. 

Financial supervisors in Luxembourg and elsewhere in Europe on Monday stepped up their efforts to maintain financial stability, protect investors and ensure the orderly functioning of markets as part of the European Union’s overall response to the “tragic consequences” of Russia’s military aggression.

Luxembourg’s financial system has weathered the pandemic well, but the Russia-Ukraine conflict poses new risks to Luxembourg’s economy while the surge in housing prices from recent years threatens the attractiveness of the Grand Duchy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded after a two-week mission.

Dutch financial group ING is bracing for a criminal indictment in Luxembourg over its failure to properly manage anti-money laundering (AML) processes at its unit in the Grand Duchy.

The bank said it was informed in January by a Luxembourg investigating judge that he intends to instruct the relevant prosecutor to prepare a criminal indictment regarding shortcomings in the anti-money laundering at ING Luxembourg.