alfi conference

With the hype around artificial intelligence and despite its high-profile failures and misuses, it’s clear the global financial sector has plenty of interest in AI, especially in hopes of finding yet another way to outsource low-complexity work. Many large financial firms have set up special departments to explore and lead the introduction of the technology in its various product offerings.

Plans to increase Europe’s capital markets capacity hinge on giving retail investors access to private assets, but liquidity remains a sticking point. Evergreen funds, designed to offer investors some liquidity in otherwise illiquid assets, are being touted as a solution.

Some 40 new Eltif funds, enabling European retail investors to put their money in private markets, are understood to be in the pipeline, due to enter the market in the coming months.

Approvals of new European Long-Term Investment Funds in Luxembourg are proceeding smoothly, despite the relays with the adoption of regulatory standards for the second generation of these funds, the CSSF’s supervisor in charge of investment funds, Marco Zwick, told the Alfi conference on Tuesday.

Digital assets are the talk of the Luxembourg financial centre and across Europe, with Mairead McGuinness, the European commissioner for financial services emphasising how the financial sector digitalisation can provide better access to products and services. New regulation is on the way to allow providers to build up the trust they need to overcome the negative publicity that has been attached especially to cryptocurrencies. 

Companies active in Luxembourg are at the forefront of harnessing digital assets in service of the financial industry. 

Any faint optimism that a memorandum of understanding between financial services regulators might fill in gaps in the Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement were dashed this week when the text was leaked. In the fund sector, attention now turns to the extent to which UK and EU decision makers will use product and marketing rules to further their political-economy agendas.