Secteur

Luxembourg banking association ABBL on Monday said it sees the EU’s new retail investment plans as “controversial”, warning that the package that aims to prioritise consumer interests and strengthen investor protection “may have unintended consequences” and could distort the investment sector.

Europe’s top financial regulators on Thursday presented a first official definition of greenwashing as part of a common approach for cracking down on greenwashing practices among banks, asset managers and insurance companies, turning up the pressure on an industry that has for a long time been complaining about the lack of clarity of the EU’s sustainable finance regulations.

Après plus de 20 ans d’engagement au sein de PensioPlus, Brigitte Bocqué passe le flambeau de la présidence à Jan De Smet, CEO du Pensioenfonds Metaal OFP. Après des années passées au sein de l’association en tant que directrice, vice-présidente et cette dernière année en tant que présidente, elle se retirera à partir du 1er août.

C’est ce qui ressort d’un communiqué de presse diffusé par l’organisation.

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.

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.

« En tant que gérants, nous investissons également notre patrimoine familial conformément à la politique que nous recommandons. Ainsi, nos intérêts sont entièrement alignés sur ceux de nos clients », explique Victor Zwart, fondateur et CEO de Wealtheon. 

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.

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.

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.

The top representative of the City of London Corporation on Tuesday began a two-day visit to Luxembourg that includes meetings with Luxembourg for Finance, financial regulator CSSF, the finance ministry and representatives of the grand duchy’s banking sector.