A typology of captive financial institutions in Luxembourg: Lessons from a new database

The paper draws a typology of captive financial institutions and money lenders (CFIs, sector S127) in Luxembourg from a new database. The latter retrieves information from three sources: the EuroGroups Register managed by Eurostat, the Statistical Business Register managed by the STATEC (National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies) and the Central Balance Sheet Register managed by the STATEC. The new database enhances the data coverage of CFIs in Luxembourg. Indeed, it includes not only CFIs with total assets larger or equal to EUR 500 million as in the BCL reporting (BCL (2014)), but also CFIs whose total assets are lower than EUR 500 million. The period of analysis spans 2011 to 2019. Results show that CFIs present different characteristics depending on their balance sheet size. On the one hand, CFIs with total assets larger than EUR 100 million mainly regroup holding companies, intragroup lending corporations, mixed structures and conduits. On the other hand, CFIs with total assets lower than EUR 100 million feature mostly mixed structures. Overall, while holding corporations own the majority of total assets, the largest number of companies consists of mixed structures.

Keywords: Captive financial institutions and money lenders, Sector S127, Typology, EuroGroups Register, Statistical Business Register, Central Balance Sheet Register, Big Data