Credit: MFIN
Luxembourg Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna has discussed opportunities for collaboration in the field of FinTech and Investment Funds during his trip to Israel.
From 17-20 March 2019, Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna visited Israel for a mission dedicated to FinTech and investment funds. Firstly, Pierre Gramegna visited the Yad Vashem memorial, a place of memory dedicated to the victims of the Shoah, where he laid a wreath in the memorial crypt.
The finance minister then had an interview with Amir Yaron, the governor of the Central Bank of Israel. They had an exchange of views on the macroeconomic situation, as well as on the implications of digitalisation and the development of cryptocurrencies. Indeed, Luxembourg and Israel are members of the same constituency at the World Bank and Israel is also a member of the Asian Investment Bank for Infrastructure (AIIB), whose general meeting will be held in July 2019 in Luxembourg.
Pierre Gramegna also had a meeting with Ofir Akunis, Minister of Science and Technology, to discuss the Israeli government's policy of support for innovation, as well as the development of the space resources sector. Indeed, a private Israeli company recently launched "Berechit", a spacecraft that should land on the moon on 11 April. If successful, this would be the first private lunar landing and proof of the feasibility of private missions, as envisaged by Luxembourg in the context of the spaceresources.lu initiative. Thus, the two ministers agreed to explore avenues for further bilateral collaboration on this topic.
As an internationally recongnised "start-up nation", Israel is home to some 500 start-ups in the Fintech sector alone. Moreover, many international financial groups have set up a research centre or incubator there. Accordingly, Pierre Gramegna, accompanied by a delegation of representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of the Economy, Luxembourg for Finance (LFF) and the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT), visited a series of these institutions, to better understand what makes the Israeli ecosystem successful and explore avenues of collaboration. In this role, he met Wendy Singer, CEO of Startup Nation Central, Ittai Ben-Zeev, CEO of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Michal Beinisch, CEO of Barclays Rise, and Uzi Scheffer, CEO of SOSA, as well as the direction of Citi Innovation Lab in Tel Aviv. The delegation also had a meeting with Peretz Regev, Head of Global Risk of Paypal, whose European headquarters are based in Luxembourg.
Furthermore, Pierre Gramegna took advantage of his visit to Israel to promote Luxembourg as a leading financial centre and gateway to the single European market. In this capacity, he participated in a seminar organised by the Luxembourg Association of the Investment Funds Industry (ALFI) in collaboration with the Israel Funds Observer (IFO), to present UCITS funds and Luxembourg alternative funds to key players in the Israeli financial sector. He also made the introductory speech of an event organised by Luxembourg for Finance and Equitech for the Tel Aviv Fintech community, to present the development opportunities in Luxembourg and Europe.
Finally, Minister Gramegna met senior executives from the world of finance and the economy to discuss investment opportunities in Luxembourg, as well as the development potential for Luxembourg companies in Israel.
