ALFI Briefing Highlights Innovation & Opportunities in Luxembourg’s Fund Industry

On Wednesday 25 March 2026, the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) hosted a media breakfast on the second day of its Global Asset Management Conference at the European Convention Centre in Luxembourg-Kirchberg.

The session welcomed around 50 members of the press, including Chronicle.lu, and was hosted by Carla Santos, ALFI Communications Manager, who welcomed the guest speakers and attendees.

The first of the event’s presentations was provided by Felipe Díaz Toro, Founder and Managing Partner of EDN Abogados, who spoke on the latest investment trends and the pension fund industry in Latin America and provided an overview of and outlook for Chile’s fund industry, which is developing following changes in the country’s political direction and an increase in worker contributions towards pension schemes. 

He highlighted an increased interest in investment opportunities in Luxembourg following changes in Chile’s pension regulation, which now allow the channelling of investments outside the country, and highlighted the popularity of the UCITS fund structure in the European Union and Luxembourg in particular. Felipe Díaz Toro said: “UCITS…is a highly regulated vehicle that for pension funds also combines this long-term strategy with oversight and an ecosystem of protection, investor protection, that for pension funds is really important.”

He added: “Out of the 1,787 funds currently registered in Chile for distribution of pension funds, 960 are in Luxembourg, so that shows the important position that Luxembourg has in Chile. Also, most of those vehicles are UCITS.”

Nabeel Ansari, Senior Director at Broadridge Financial Solutions, then gave a presentation on the strategies for growth in relation to the challenges faced by mid-sized fund managers. He highlighted the performance of boutique (small-sized) fund managers in relation to their mid-sized and mega (large-sized) counterparts and detailed the statistics for each in terms of active versus passive growth, the net flows of assets under management and where risks lie in relation to product offerings.

Nabeel Ansari said: “There is a concentration risk when it comes to mid-sized managers that actually you have got breadth and capability, but do you have depth in those capabilities and are you relying on a small set of products in delivering your growth?”

He added: “What we have found is that the mid-size managers do phenomenally well in capturing growth for growth sectors. So, this is organic growth, unrealised organic growth for each archetype. And for mid-sized managers, they perform better than the mega-managers in capturing the upside when the fund sectors are in their inflow…The challenge is the other end. When you look at what is happening in the categories that are in the outflow, mid-size managers perform the worst when it comes to third-party distribution.”

He concluded: “For the mid-sized managers, what we have found is that when sectors are in an outflow, they are the ones that are on the chopping block first. They are the ones that really have to work hard in building relationships with the intermediaries, building relationships with the institutional investors. That comes with challenges when it comes to operating expenses, being in front of clients and thinking about the revenues and the margins you get.”

The closing presentation was provided by Alex Panican, Deputy CEO at the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology (LHoFT), who spoke about LHoFT’s work with ALFI in establishing a Fintech programme which looked at sourcing solutions for Luxembourg’s key problems in asset management. 

He detailed how in this year’s programme LHoFT approached 186 Fintech companies worldwide to invite them to submit their ideas. Ten of these were selected to participate in an acceleration programme for a period of two weeks. The first week was held online and included a mentorship programme and presentations from ALFI regarding Luxembourg's asset ecosystem. The second week sees the companies come to Luxembourg to meet with figures in the industry at the Global Asset Management Conference. Such was the success of the first iteration of the programme it has now secured involvement and ongoing funding from Luxembourg’s Ministry of Finance.

Alex Panican remarked: “It is very unique to have an association of the fund industry that says: ‘Competitiveness is key for us. Let us find the best innovation where they see it and bring them to Luxembourg.’ I do not think anybody else in the world is doing that besides ALFI.”