Stephen Evans

Luxembourg’s banking association ABBL is encouraging its members to overcome their reluctance and embrace the cloud computing revolution in order to remain “agile and innovative”, especially now that the CSSF has improved its regulatory framework for cloud banking.  A recent ABBL-KPMG survey shows that banks in the Grand Duchy are slow to take up cloud services.

New rules, new details and a new terminology regarding financial sector outsourcing are being introduced by Luxembourg’s financial regulator CSSF with the presentation of its widely discussed ‘circular 22/806’. These changes, with significant consequences for the use of IT and cloud services, bring greater clarity within the  regulatory framework.

As the financial industry continues to call for more clarity and guidance to handle what even supervisors see as the “astonishing” complexity of the emerging EU framework for sustainable finance, impact investments and ESG, European regulators have added a range of technical details to sustainability rules over recent weeks. 

Luxembourg Finance Minister Yuriko Backes is visiting London this week, at a time when advocates of maintaining strong UK-EU financial services relationships are struggling to have their voices heard. The Luxembourg government has sought to take the heat out of Brexit arguments since the 2016 leave vote, and this visit is the latest such effort. 

The European Securities and Markets Authority recognises the asset management industry is under pressure to meet green investing rules and is preparing more detailed guidance shortly because it believes it is ultimately worthwhile work. “In a few weeks time you will be getting more guidance from the ESAs on various topics related to the SFDR,” an official said in Luxembourg.

Dislocation of Europe’s energy supplies, inflation, increased interest rates, Covid lockdowns in China… The list of factors creating headwinds for investors is long. A pair of French boutique-fund managers visiting Luxembourg explained that these problems however do not require strategies to be fundamentally rethought.

A case study of how EU and UK financial sector regulations will diverge is in the shifting rules around the Key Investor Document (KID), part of the Packaged Retail and Insurance-based Investment Products (PRIIPs) regulation. There will be no big-bang moment, but the details are about to begin to change gradually. And influential voices are calling for more divergence. 

Failure to understand the requirements of the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation, known as SFDR, could expose asset managers to reporting and greenwashing risks, not least with the sustainability preferences aspects of MiFID II coming down the pike. “SFDR has been very often seen by some as a product classification and even as a product-labelling initiative, both of which are absolutely not the case,” Nathalie Dogniez, a partner with PwC Luxembourg told Investment Officer.

Funds exposed to the Ukraine war have new liquidity management options following the recent publication of the CSSF’s guidance. To understand more about how the market is adapting , particularly during the current annual reporting season, we spoke to Nicolas Hennebert, partner and investment management leader audit & assurance at Deloitte Luxembourg.

The Luxembourg fund industry was given its ESG marching orders last week by CSSF CEO Claude Marx at the Alfi European Asset Management conference. “I am sometimes irritated by those who over inflate small issues or imperfections in this area,” he said.