Electronic money institution authorisation (Luxembourg)

At a glance

What it lets you do

• Issuing electronic money
• Execution of payment transactions
• Money remittance
• Issuing payment instruments and acquiring payment transactions
• Payment initiation services
• Account information services

• Issuing electronic money. Issuing monetary value stored electronically against funds received, redeemable at par and accepted by third parties as payment.
• Execution of payment transactions. Executing direct debits, card payments and credit transfers, including standing orders, from a payment account.
• Money remittance. Receiving funds from a payer solely to transfer them to a payee or another provider, without opening payment accounts.
• Issuing payment instruments and acquiring payment transactions. Issuing cards or other payment instruments to payers, and acquiring card and other payment transactions for merchants.
• Payment initiation services. Initiating a payment order at the user's request from an account held with another provider, as in open banking.
• Account information services. Providing consolidated online information on one or more payment accounts the user holds with other providers.

Where it is valid

Cost

How long it takes

Statutory: 3 months from receipt of a complete application, maximum 12 months overall⁴. Observed: not published. The statutory clock usually starts only when the regulator treats the application as complete, and pauses while it waits for answers to its questions.

Buying a company that already holds it

Prior notification with an objection period. Acquisition or disposal of qualifying holdings reaching or crossing 10%, 20%, 30%, or 50% of capital or voting rights, or causing an entity to become a subsidiary, requires prior written notification to the CSSF. The CSSF conducts a prudential assessment of acquirer suitability, reputation, financial soundness, and AML risk within 60 working days (interruptible once by up to 20 working days, or 30 working days for non-EU acquirers) under Articles 18 and 18-1 of the Law of 5 April 1993, Article 12 of the Law of 10 November 2009, Article 83 of Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 (MiCA), and Circular CSSF 17/669 adopting the Joint ESA Guidelines.⁶

Laws behind it

• Directive 2009/110/EC on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions: Directive 2009/110/EC