LHoFT in Luxembourg

LHoFT is a foundation, and its board brings the state and the financial industry to one table. According to its about page, Luxembourg's Minister of Finance, Gilles Roth, chairs the board, and Philippe Seyll, the chief executive of Clearstream, is vice chairman. Further members come from the ministries of the economy and of state, from Luxembourg for Finance and from banks such as Société Générale, BGL BNP Paribas and Spuerkeess.

The government of the Grand Duchy, the Chamber of Commerce and Luxembourg for Finance are named as supporters. For a firm arriving from abroad, LHoFT is the first stop that already has the ministry and the large banks on its board.

Catapult is the acceleration program, a set of bootcamps that LHoFT says are built to move a venture forward in weeks, not months. The tracks for the financial industry include Green Fintech, FundTech, BankTech and Kickstarter. FundTech is the one that fits Luxembourg's fund industry most closely, since the country domiciles funds that are sold across the EU.

A second group of Catapult tracks works on financial inclusion, with editions for Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe, supported by Luxembourg's Directorate of Development and Humanitarian Affairs. Next to Catapult, LHoFT runs education programs, a program it calls Mutualisation, incubation and corporate innovation work, plus community formats such as Fintech Friday and Women in Fintech.

In April 2026 Luxembourg opened an AI experience center at LHoFT: one floor with eight interactive zones where financial institutions try AI applications before they decide where to adopt them. LHoFT addresses it to institutions assessing where and how to adopt AI responsibly, and exhibitors get six months of visibility to banks, investors and partners. Microsoft, Proximus and Plug and Play are among the companies named on the center's page.

For a German bank, the format answers a practical question under the EU AI Act: which use cases a supervised institution can run, and how a vendor shows that its model is fit for that use. Finance Loop covers the rules at the EU AI Act for banks.

Luxembourg's supervisor runs its own contact point next to LHoFT. The CSSF Innovation Hub takes questions and project presentations from firms that work on new technology for the financial sector, including providers the CSSF does not supervise, and the CSSF then assesses whether a license or registration is needed.

The two answer different questions. LHoFT connects a fintech with banks and fund administrators; the CSSF tells it which authorization it needs. A crypto-asset service provider authorized by the CSSF under MiCA passports into Germany, as explained at fintech in Luxembourg, and the ledger rules for tokenized securities are at tokenization in Luxembourg.

LHoFT is the Luxembourg House of Financial Technology, a foundation set up in 2016 with the government, the Chamber of Commerce and Luxembourg for Finance behind it. It runs the Catapult acceleration programs, incubation, education and an AI center, and it connects fintech startups with Luxembourg's banks and fund industry.

Catapult is LHoFT's acceleration program: short bootcamps with mentoring, training and introductions. Its tracks for the financial industry include FundTech, BankTech and Green Fintech, and its financial inclusion tracks run editions for Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe. Each track opens its own call for applications.

Yes. LHoFT offers incubation and help with finding a place in Luxembourg to firms from abroad, and its Catapult tracks take applicants from outside the country. A German fintech that sells to fund administrators or depositary banks meets them there, and the authorization question goes to the CSSF.