Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

As of September 20, 2006, the Association of Luxembourg Compliance Officers for the Financial Sector (ALCO) and the Luxembourg Institute for Training in Banking (IFBL) signed a partnership agreement to the purpose of providing a specific training course dedicated to the job of Compliance Officer, under its various aspects.
At the end of the course which will be delivered by ALCO board members among others, a certificate will be issued to attest the achieved qualification.
For several years, the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism have been an important part of the financial sector’s environment. This evolution has seen the emergence of a new profession: the Compliance Officer. Its role is to ensure the respect of legislative, statutory and ethical standards in effect.

The training is positive trend but there are a couple of issues that relativize its effect :
- first, due to link of subordination inherent to any contract of employment, how compliance officers may deal with management that officially minimized and standardized accounting frauds in the debate that took place for the transposition of the second directive (See "Clear and pragmatic legal rules") ?
- second, taking into account the low level of sanctions (number and amount of fines) in Luxembourg compared to competitors (See article "CSS poor communication on sanctions"), what is the credibility of the compliance framework of the financial center ?
- finally, beyond the knowledge of the legal and regulatory framework that may be learnt during a traditional training, what about the individual ethical decision making process and ethical behavior, actually the most important ?

Compliance is much more a question of state of mind than a question of training. This implies a specific coaching/training at every level of the organisation to monitor a cultural change. Such coaching can only be provided by people that have hindsight and therefore are able to repudiate the visible dysfunctions of the financial center.


Press release
See Brochure