Over past decades, Luxembourg has emerged as a major international financial centre. This has been crucial to the development of its economy and the financial sector has come to play a large role in economic activity, employment and government revenues. The financial centre is specialised in the management of interbank liquidity for international cross-border banks and asset management activities. The global financial crisis has had a strong impact on the financial sector with a substantial contraction of banks’ balance sheets, mostly related to lower interbank lending, and a fall in the value of assets under management due to the drop in equity prices.