The LHoFT, an important European Fintech stakeholder
The LHoFT- the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology — is a public-private sector initiative with a focus on technology innovation in Financial Services in Luxembourg launched in late 2016.
Nasir Zubairi is the CEO, whom I met for the first time at SIBOS in Geneva in September 2016 [ SIBOS size conventions may take really long to happen again, if they ever happen in that globalized format.] Today we are looking at 4 years of an important ecosystem stakeholder, The LHoFT, whose role in Luxembourg has been vital. Luxembourg is like parfums that come in small sizes, and has distinct top global roles in the fund industry, in green finance, and microfinance (to name a few). As a result, Regtech is a big focus for the LHoFT, especially around anything related to funds.
We can actually think of Luxembourg as a predominantly B2B fintech hub with an interest in fund administration technologies, payments (always a core component of finance), and lately blockchain for capital markets. Nasir mentioned a few names of Blockchain4Finance companies in Luxembourg during the podcast, like Tokeny, StokR, FundsDLT which are focused on Tokenization. Such companies are leading the way for the evolution of Capital markets which includes the fund industry.
FundsDLT is a homegrown initiative that I have covered before (Sep 2019) in `Two live Blockchain use cases in Mutual Funds administration and four pilots` along with Calastone and other cases. Just last month FundsDLT announced the closing of a Series A investment to develop a Decentralized platform for fund distribution. Clearstream, Credit Suisse Asset Management, and Natixis Investment Managers were the investors that joined the seed investor in the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
LHoft has established several different partnerships over time with major consulting firms, with large asset management firms, and banks.
Late 2019, LHoft partnered with CFTE to launch the Luxembourg Digital Academy.
LHoft has been supporting startups to thrive in the Luxembourg ecosystem. They have also launched a dedicated innovation program focused on Africa. The latest LHoFT CATAPULT is the 3rd cohort which is focused on African Fintechs for financial inclusion.
Catapult: Inclusion Africa 2020
► People’s Pension Trust — Ghana
► uKheshe — South Africa & UK.
This post was inspired from listening to Episode 19 of `Breaking Banks Europe` hosted by Matteo Rizzi and Spiros Margaris and with an Ecosystem Zoom into Luxembourg.
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