The coalition agreement sets out four core priorities for the government’s financial centre policy: support the development and expansion of promising new sectors, ensure best-in-class financial sector regulation, further strengthen international promotion of the financial centre and support education and financial sector research.
One new sector that will see significant expansion over the next years is certainly green and sustainable finance. Building on its national sustainable finance roadmap, the government will set up a Sustainable Finance Initiative to implement a comprehensive national strategy, and will encourage cooperation between international institutions, Luxembourg University and research institutes and the financial sector to establish Luxembourg as an international centre of excellence in sustainable finance.
In order to accompany the digitalisation of financial services, the government will continue to develop the highly successful national FinTech platform, the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT), and explore additional mechanisms to facilitate the launch of new activities and start-ups.
Leveraging Luxembourg’s unparalleled success in UCITS, the government will also specifically focus on alternative investment funds and ensure that the legal framework is conducive to the development of this particular sector.
The government will closely monitor regulatory and technological developments to ensure Luxembourg can continiusly adapt its legal and regulatory environment, in full compliance with European and international norms, and maintain its traditional first move advantage. This will include exploring the potential of setting up new legal frameworks, for example in the area of crypto assets and initial coin offerings.
The government is also committed to making sure that international firms continue to find in the Luxembourg financial centre the ideal conditions to access the EU market, notably in the context of Brexit. Thus, in order to continue implementing an integrated, coherent and proactive promotion strategy for the financial centre, the government will ensure that Luxembourg for Finance, in its role as the Agency for the Development of the Financial Sector, has the necessary means. The government is also strongly committed to maintaining the right environment to allow the financial sector to attract the necessary talent and relevant high-skilled employees it needs for its continued European and international development.
Finally, the Government sees vocational training for the sector‘s employees as a key priority and will support new financial sector related research in areas such as financial technology, artificial intelligence or sustainable finance to ensure that the financial centre remains leading edge.
