European investors face hurdles in reclaiming withholding tax

Procedures in Europe for reclaiming withholding tax remain cumbersome and costly, making it difficult or “financially unreasonable” for non-professional investors to reclaim taxes paid twice on cross-border dividend income, a recent study has found. The European Commission in June is due to present proposals to remove obstacles to prevent double taxation. The survey was conducted among 3,000 European investors by two investor interest groups, Brussels-based NGO Better Finance and Düsseldorf, Germany-based DSW.

In Flux: Value for money?

Costs of investment funds continue to be a divisive topic in the fund and asset management business. Are investors really paying 40% too much? Or ‘only’ 25%? What are they actually paying for? In Luxembourg, home to a third of Europe’s 30,000 Ucits funds, this discussion could lead to major changes in the coming years, like it already has in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

EU ban on kickbacks off the table, at least for now

When the long wait for the retail investment strategy finally ended this afternoon at a European Commission press conference in Brussels, there were no big surprises. There finally will be no full ban on inducements. But Commissioner Mairead McGuinness gave the financial industry three years to hit her targets for transparency, costs and retail investor participation, or the ban will be back on the table.

‘Institutional portfolios can do with more venture capital’

Les portefeuilles d’investissement institutionnels en Europe pourraient bénéficier de plus de capital-risque, en particulier lorsqu’il s’agit de réaliser des investissements à impact vert, a déclaré Constantijn van Oranje-Nassau, l’envoyé des Pays-Bas pour les investissements technologiques, lors d’une interview podcastée par IO Talks. M. van Oranje, qui dirige Techleap, une initiative d’investissement technologique parrainée par le gouvernement néerlandais et basée à Amsterdam, a parlé du climat commercial mondial pour les investissements technologiques, des effets de la hausse des taux d’intérêt sur les investissements technologiques, des dilemmes liés à l’intelligence artificielle et du nouveau fonds d’investissement de l’OTAN, qui est structuré via le Luxembourg.

Attracting talent is getting harder!

In 1908, there were 16,000 Luxembourgish immigrants living in Chicago. They were extremely poor and needed to emigrate to survive. Today, people emigrate to Luxembourg for different reasons. It’s more about thriving rather than surviving.

Without immigration, there would be no fund industry, there is a constant need to attract talent from abroad. Amazingly, only 20% of the local population works in the private sector. Probably even less in the fund industry.

Luxembourg banks seek legal clarity on use of generative AI

Luxembourg’s banking sector is asking data protection and financial services authorities to provide more clarity on the use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Presenting its survey on the use of ChatGPT, bank sector group ABBL on Thursday said 38 per cent of bank employees are currently blocked from using such tools, which is significantly more than the average of 24 percent for the sector as a whole.