Wealth Managers

The popularity of digital assets will lead to significant changes for the financial industry, including within the area of asset custody. Today’s global custody industry goes back to regulatory changes in the 1970s. Digital assets, the most well-known being Bitcoin, differ in several ways from traditional assets, including the role of information technology, specifically of private key management, which will be accompanied by potential regulatory differences.

Capital Group and Impax are the asset management firms that won the 2022 Morningstar Awards for Excellence in Investing in Luxembourg, the investment research firm has announced. Funds managed by Fundsmith, Comgest, BlueBay and Capital Group have won individual Morningstar awards. 

The head of Luxembourg’s top financial regulator on Tuesday called on the country’s asset management industry to step up its efforts and make sure that Russian oligarchs don’t evade sanctions by hiding their money in European investment funds.

It almost sounds like a call to run for the hills. Get rid of your risky assets, go defensive, and play volatility as an asset class. Sell European equities and buy Swiss. Now that the Russia-Ukraine war shows no signs of abating, Christophe Donay, Chief Strategist at Swiss-based Pictet Wealth Management, fears that excessive global debt has made the world economy vulnerable to a new systemic crisis. 

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.

Luxembourg has joined the international move to impose sanctions against Russia for its ruthless invasion of Ukraine. It has followed steps taken by other European and global countries and organisations, including condemning Russia’s aggression, even sending some weaponry and equipment to Ukraine’s beleaguered defenders. But there’s one area where Luxembourg appears to be out of step: the high profile application of the sanctions to Russian oligarchic assets held in this country.

The financial industry often baulked at the tens of billions of euros it pays for EU’s comprehensive regulation framework put in place post 2008 financial crisis. With markets in turmoil over Russia-Ukraine, that tone now is different.

As the asset management industry embraces wealthtech, its business model has suddenly become very scalable. That also explains the interest of private equity, writes Han Dieperink in his column for Investment Officer this week.

The momentum score of value stocks is on the rise as a result of the recovery of financials, energy and a strong performance of the basic materials sector. If value stocks become momentum stocks, this could give an extra boost to the style rotation that has started since November last year. 

Morningstar’s Jeffrey Schumacher discussed momentum investing in a contribution to Investment Officer and Fondsnieuws.

A Netflix-like environment that provides access to advice that is data-driven, personalized, continuous and preferrably subscription-based, is the future of wealth advice according to McKinsey.