Spring is better late than never. (the banking industry in Luxembourg)

SPRING IS BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

There is a new spring in the step of Luxembourg’s bankers these days, and so there should be. After last year’s worries about German banks heading back to Frankfurt and the dwindling of the bed-rock Eurocredit business, the Institut Monetaire Luxembourgeois (IML) reported that pre-tax banking profits in 1985 rose by an average of more than 20%. What makes Luxembourg bankers even happier is that the true profits were actually much greater — over three times as much — but they were hidden from taxation under Luxembourg’s generous regulations.