Swissquote

When investors buy a company’s share, conventionally, they hope for the stock value to climb and maybe pay dividends. But there’s another way to make money on your shares – lend them to other investors to use for their own purposes, for a fee. This hasn’t been previously possible for most investors in Luxembourg. With help of a fintech, one bank has committed to make it happen.

High hopes for crypto’s ability to revolutionise the financial world were dealt a harsh reality check with the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange last year. With Luxembourg having early on placed a bet on crypto, some have suggested it could suffer reputational damage. New regulation including the European Union’s MiCA regulation however may offer a way to do crypto safely, Thursday’s debate at Swissquote’s Luxembourg event heard.

Swissquote Bank Europe has become the first Luxembourg bank to be able to offer depositary services to digital asset investment funds, having obtained CSSF regulatory approval to act as a depositary bank for Luxembourg-domiciled funds along with its status as Vasp, or regulated Virtual ASset Provider.

There’s a strong level of interest in crypto finance in Luxembourg’s financial centre, according to a survey carried out by the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology and PwC. The Grand Duchy nevertheless has yet to develop the necessary infrastructure to be a leading crypto finance centre.

The survey, entitled “Crypto-assets: Paradigm shift or short-term trend?” was carried out in the last quarter of 2021 and was presented on Wednesday at a Luxembourg event hosted by PwC.

It was the week of the central banks. The Bank of England raised interest rates by 15 basis points, the US Fed hinted at three rate hikes and a reduction in the buy-back programme. What exactly the ECB is aiming for is not entirely clear to market analysts. One thing is clear: a rate hike is the ultimum remedium for the central bank of President Christine Lagarde.