The Luxembourg banking association, the ABBL, has defended the fees it charges members, following the planned departure of auditing giants PwC, KPMG and EY from the organisation from Wednesday.

Paperjam reported last week that the three out of the so-called Big Four firms would be leaving the ABBL as of 1 April. The Luxembourg-based news outlet cited membership costs and the methods used to calculate them for their departure.

These membership fees were calculated on the number of employees in the three companies, which argued the ABBL should have taken into account only employees doing work related to banking, a spokesperson for the association told the Luxemburger Wort on Tuesday.

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This contribution “is based on the total number of their employees, whereas they would have preferred that only the teams directly assigned to the banking sector be taken into account”, the ABBL said.

There are around 260 corporate members in Luxembourg’s ABBL.

“These naturally include all banks in the financial centre, but also investment firms, payment institutions, e-money institutions, crypto service providers, fintechs, law firms, and consulting and auditing firms,” the association said.

The ABBL’s membership fee structure takes into account not only the number of employees, but also the respective economic sector of its members. The fee for a consultancy or audit firm with the same number of employees is significantly lower than that of a bank, the ABBL said.

The ABBL said it “provides them [audit and consultancy firms]” with access “to a wealth of data as well as to national and European legislative processes. These aspects, too, represent significant added value and a major privilege of membership.”

The banking association said it regrets that “all our efforts and numerous counter-proposals met with no response”.

“As our Board of Directors must ensure the proper functioning of our association in the interests of all member categories, it was unable to meet the demands of these three members and took note of their resignation at its meeting on 25 March,” the ABBL spokesperson added.

(This article was originally published by the Luxemburger Wort, translated using AI and edited by Kate Oglesby.)