Mission and competences

The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) is the supervisory authority of the Luxembourg financial sector. Its duties and its field of competence are provided for in the organic Law of 23 December 1998.

The CSSF is the competent authority of the prudential supervision of credit institutions, professionals of the financial sector (investment firms, specialised PFS, support PFS), management companies, authorised alternative investment fund managers, undertakings for collective investment, pension funds (SEPCAV and ASSEP), SICARs, authorised securitisation undertakings, fiduciary-representatives having dealings with a securitisation undertaking, regulated markets as well as their operators, multilateral trading facilities, payment institutions, electronic money institutions and crowdfunding service providers.

The CSSF is, within the limits of its statutory powers, in charge of promoting transparency, simplicity and fairness on the markets of financial products and services.

The CSSF is the national resolution authority and performs the tasks arising from Directive 2014/59/EU establishing a framework for the recovery and resolution of credit institutions and investment firms, Regulation (EU) No 806/2014 establishing uniform rules and a uniform procedure for the resolution of credit institutions and certain investment firms in the framework of a Single Resolution Mechanism and a Single Resolution Fund, and Regulation (EU) No 2021/23 on a framework for the recovery and resolution of central counterparties.

The CSSF is in charge of ensuring compliance with the professional obligations regarding the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing by all the persons supervised, authorised or registered by it.

The CSSF is the competent authority to ensure compliance by the supervised professionals with the laws protecting financial consumers.

The CSSF is in charge of:

• granting the title of réviseur d’entreprises and cabinet de révision, of their approval and registration;
• adopting auditing standards and standards on professional ethics and internal quality control of cabinets de revision agréés (approved audit firms);
• continuing education;
• implementing a quality assurance system to which all réviseurs d’entreprises agréés (approved statutory auditors) and approved audit firms carrying out statutory audits and any other assignments which are reserved to them by the Law concerning the audit profession are subject to.

The CSSF has a whole range of significant measures to act against persons subject to its supervision that would violate the applicable regulations relating to the financial sector or that would not comply with the professional obligations imposed on them.

The CSSF cooperates with the Banque Centrale du Luxembourg, the European supervisory authorities and the other supervisory authorities and resolution authorities at the European and international level.