Asset Servicing

The Asian bond market continues to deepen, supported by local and international interest.

Investors in evergreen funds apparently did not fully grasp what they were getting into when they entrusted their capital to these “semi-liquid” vehicles investing in private markets. After Blue Owl, two large private credit funds managed by Blackstone and Blackrock were hit last week with a surge in redemption requests.

In a fund market that is becoming increasingly fragmented between European requirements, rising regulatory pressure, and the growth of private markets, large offshore firms can no longer ignore Luxembourg. For Mourant, historically established in Jersey, Guernsey, and the Cayman Islands, opening an office in the Grand Duchy two years ago was not merely a geographic expansion. It was a strategic repositioning.

This week’s overview of people transfers from across Europe.

The price of a barrel of crude oil surged past the $100 mark as the situation in the Middle East escalated further. A small price to pay, according to the president of the United States. Yet I suspect Trump is taking too narrow a view of the true cost of this new military intervention – if he is even considering those costs at all.

Young people today are looking for a modern, balanced, purposeful, and flexible work environment, say heads of HR at Luxembourg private banks. Employers, on the other hand, are focusing on whether candidates bring transferable skills.

Finance is full of repetitive work, often done manually. Reconciliation, reporting, and various calculations to evaluate assets are part of daily life. But in recent years, the AI storm has arrived.

With euro stablecoins and a digital euro, Europe wants to counter the looming dollarization of the European economy. In consumer payments, the sovereignty of the euro is already under pressure, the European Central Bank warns.

Within one hundred hours, American and Israeli forces struck nearly 2.000 targets in Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei and dozens of senior officials were killed. It is the largest American military operation in the Middle East since 2003. The initial market reaction was remarkably muted, but the oil price tells a different story.