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.

Biodiversity credit markets needed to finance $824 bln gap 

Current efforts to address global biodiversity loss are inadequate and face a financing gap of between 598 billion and 824 billion dollars per year, a new study has concluded. To address this gap, governments and businesses need to support the introduction of ‘biodiversity credit markets’, to be modelled in a manner similar to the carbon credit markets that already exist.

Luxembourg’s financial sector set for wider adoption of AI

Although usage of artificial intelligence in the Luxembourg financial sector is currently fairly limited and still at an early stage, the grand duchy is set for wider adoption of artificial intelligence in the near future, according to a survey carried out by BCL, the central bank, and financial supervisor CSSF.