The modern Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was created by The Congress of Vienna after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo. This was a compromise that ended the territorial claims of both France and Prussia (modern Germany). Today, Luxembourg, or more properly the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg exists as a landlocked, stable, westernized constitutional monarchy. The Grand Duchy is both a member of NATO as well as a founding member of the European Union. The Euro was adopted in 1999.
Almost half a million people reside within the country, which possesses a thriving economy that benefits from trade with Luxembourg’s neighbors France, Belgium and Germany. Luxembourg is also home to a thriving financial sector, which alone accounts for more than a quarter of the country’s GDP. Many of the more than one hundred banks operating in Luxembourg are foreign owned and foreign, non-resident citizens are permitted to open accounts. As always, individual banks are permitted to set policies according to their own standards.
Banking in Luxembourg is controlled by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier or CSSF (http://www.cssf.lu/). This organization exists to protect the soundness and reputation of the Luxembourg financial sector. A list of banks operating in Luxembourg is available on the website under the “Supervised Entities” menu option. Monetary policy within the Grand Duchy is carried out by the Central Bank of Luxembourg (http://www.bcl.lu/fr/index.php), in partnership with the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.
As an EU member country, Luxembourg has established a deposit guarantee scheme, which is administered by the Association pour la Garantie des Dépots Luxembourg or AGDL (http://www.agdl.lu/). All banks operating in Luxembourg are legally bound to participate in this program, which provides €100,000 in coverage per depositor, regardless of the nationality of the depositor or the currency in which the deposit is held.
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