The Luxembourg Stock Exchange Group has announced its results for the financial year 2019; the group, which consists of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) and its wholly owned subsidiary Fundsquare, reported consolidated revenues of €48.5 million for the financial year ending on 31 December 2019.

This represents a revenue growth of 1% compared to the year before. The group also reported a net profit of €13.5 million for the financial year 2019, up 20% from 2018, partly driven by non-operational results.  

In parallel, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange published its first Sustainability Report, which outlines the company’s comprehensive, SDG-linked CSR strategy and a number of activities with a positive social and environmental impact organised by the company in 2019.

Small but nimble

While the exchange employs around 125 staff, and around 200 on group level, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange has played a central role in the development of the Luxembourg financial centre in its 90-year history. Over the last four decades, the company has constantly increased its international focus, to become the world’s leading listing venue for international debt securities. In 2019 alone, 10,400 new securities were listed on the exchange, representing €1.2 trillion. At the end of 2019, the exchange had in excess of 36,000 securities admitted to listing and trading on its markets.  

“We are a small and independent exchange in a market dominated by large groups of stock exchange operators. We drive our strength from being agile, disciplined in our focus on sustainability and financial technology, and building strong partnerships within and beyond capital markets across continents. Given the current pandemic, these pillars will be even more important in 2020,” explained Robert Scharfe, CEO of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.

The future is FinTech

In the past few years, the Luxembourg Stock Exchange has increased its focus on FinTech. Last year, the company acquired a 10% stake in the London-based FinTech firm Origin that simplifies the bond issuance process, and it also made a visible investment in the Luxembourg start-up StarTalers, a digital investment adviser for sustainable investments. Last month, LuxSE announced the successful closing of the Series A funding round of FundsDLT, a project initiated by LuxSE in 2017 and now set to transform fund distribution with blockchain technology.  

Sustainable Finance in times of COVID-19

Besides being a renowned listing venue, LuxSE is recognised as the leading exchange for sustainable securities. After establishing the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX) in 2016, the exchange has placed itself at the heart of the Sustainable Finance agenda. In the first four months of 2020, around 80 new green, social and sustainability securities were displayed on LGX, representing a total value of €50 billion.

“We are seeing a clear rise in social bonds. While the “S” in ESG is emerging, E, S and G are clearly interconnected and we cannot separate them. This is the very basis of sustainability. Covid-19 is an unintended opportunity to shift the world to a greener and fairer society, and the recovery can only be sustainable,” explained Julie Becker, Deputy CEO of LuxSE and Founder of LGX.

With its stated ambition to promote the Sustainable Finance agenda in new ways, LGX recently increased its scope to include Sustainable Finance education by launching its LGX Academy, and is currently developing a centralised data hub for sustainability data points. 

For LuxSE’s Sustainability Report, see https://www.bourse.lu/csr