BEAST Magazine #1 2015

10
#Business | FinTech
HUGUES
CEO OF BIL GROUP
DELCOURT
INTERVIEW ALEXANDRE KEILMANN
The strategic alliance between ICT
and financial services, long practised
through a dematerialization process
started years ago, is expressed today
through the emergence of the FinTech
sector. Do the newcommers born from
this encounter represent a threat to the
financial industry or a refreshing break
likely to boost activities?
Hugues Delcourt, CEO of BIL Group,
explains how Luxembourg’s oldest bank
chose to look to the future rather than
regret the past.
© Oliv’images photographie
What is your definition of FinTech?
FinTech is where technology meets financial
services, with a disruptive twist. It involves a wide
variety of industries – from P2P lending, roboinvesting,
payments and crowd funding to digital
currencies and big-data – all in the service of
financial companies. All these companies share a
common trait in that they aim to make financial
services and markets more efficient, while
offering a better user experience.
Where does Luxembourg have a role to play in
the development of FinTech?
Luxembourg has a lot to offer. BIL, as a major
institution in the country, has the duty to support
the many efforts to make it a more attractive
place for this sector to do business. This will have
a positive impact on the national economy. All of
the relevant actors are working together, much
as we did in the 80s and 90s to attract the fund
industry to Luxembourg.
This country has the potential to become the
European HQ of mature foreign FinTechs because
of several advantages. It can offer the European
passporting of regulated companies, by setting
up an appropriate regulatory framework.
It offers a state-of-the-art IT infrastructure that provides top-quality connectivity
and managed or cloud services. Luxembourg also offers recognised know-how in
financial engineering, which is needed by some FinTech activities, like specialised
vehicles, securitisation for instance. Most of all, it offers a business-friendly
environment that allows innovative companies to thrive.
Of course, there are also challenges ahead: access to funding, especially start-up
funding, has not yet been resolved. But even more fundamentally, Luxembourg
needs to offer a human resources pool that offers the kind of tech profiles this
sector needs.
Are Luxemburgish customers ready to switch to FinTech services?
With 75% of the population now using smartphones, Luxembourgers are amongst
the most intensive mobile users in Europe. This is combined with a state-of-theart
IT infrastructure and a strong local expertise in providing financial services. All
together, this makes Luxembourg a very attractive place for FinTech operators.
What one must keep in mind, however, is that for “pure players” - a company
that focusses on a single product or service in order to obtain a large market
share - Luxembourg falls a bit short of the critical mass usually required for tech
investments targeting only the domestic market to be able to break even.
We can observe that our mobile banking usage statistics demonstrate that our
clients are willing to embrace technology whenever it offers them a clear addedvalue.
But since an alternative offer barely exists at this point, it’s hard to say
more than this.
BEAST MAGAZINE #1