The Estonian Startup Awards 2020 organised by Estonian Founders Society, LIFT99 and Startup Estonia, has announced winners in 9 categories among which fintech startup Veriff bagged The B2B Saas Startup of 2020 award. Launched in 2019, the award recognises the achievements of  Estonian founders, startups and community initiatives. The search for nominees began in autumn 2020 with a public nomination round. 230 people from the community nominated almost 300 inspiring founders, startups, and initiatives. After a thorough background check around 80 candidates made it to the shortlist. The final voting took place from 31st Dec to 6th Jan and was…

Crunchfish announces a new patent pending innovation with application number SE2150109-3 that extends offline frictionless mobile payments to also support payment cards. This is especially important in CBDC implementations as cards as a bearer instrument is important to ensure financial inclusion. The innovation Crunchfish brings is that cards can be topped-up and used much easier. By simply tapping a card on a mobile the user may top-up the balance on the card or alternatively pay to an offline wallet on the mobile. The Digital Cash cards may also be implemented with the dual functionality of both maintaining a balance on…

Finnish proptech platform CHAOS has announced the successful closure of a €1.5 million funding round led by sustainability-focused Swedish investment firm Nidoco. Angel investors Kai Keituri, Tapio Heikkilä, and Stefan Lindberg had also participated in the funding round. The investment team will work with CHAOS to scale their real-estate forecasting insights so investors and developers can better assess risks and increase their competitive edge when building urban portfolios across the world. The CHAOS team said that it plans to make further improvements to its technical forecasting solution planned that aims to deliver deeper data insights to customers. The team is…

UAB Maneuver (Genome), an electronic money institution focused on alternative banking and payment solutions, will be the payment provider for parking services in Vilnius, Lithuania. Genome said that its services will be available in three more cities namely Kaunas, Klaipėda, and Trakai where the m.Parking app is used. Lithuanian citizens in Vilnius can now pay for parking with their credit cards using the parking app where Genome will tokenise users’ card details for safety reasons . The Municipal Enterprise has updated its infrastructure to accept more transactions and provide clients with this service. The decision to add on more payment…

kevin., a Lithuanian payments startup, announced that it has raised €1.5 million in seed funding to scale into new markets in Europe. The funding came from a number of European business angels from the finance and insurance industries. kevin. currently operates across the Baltics, Poland, the Netherlands and Portugal. In 2021, it plans to enter 15 more European markets and is targeting enough bank connections to cover 80% of customers in the European Economic Area (EEA). Part of its new funding will also be invested into further product development, with a POS solution in the pipeline. kevin. said in a…

Payments service provider Svea and Nordic API Gateway, Denmark’s open banking platform, signed a new partnership that is set to boost e-commerce checkout for a wide range of merchants in Finland through the latter’s platform. The open banking platform is currently live in 21 European markets and expects to be fully rolled out with their payment initiation module across Europe during 2021. Nordic API Gateway reportedly processes more than half a million PSD2 payments monthly for customers like OP Financial Group, Checkout Finland, Danske Bank, DNB, Lunar and more. The number the open banking firm is expected to grow tenfold by…

The Nordic countries are placing themselves at the forefront of the open banking movement. In Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, traditional financial institutions and fintechs are rapidly embracing the trend which they perceive as a major opportunity for their businesses, a research commissioned by Nordic API Gateway found. The study, conducted in early 2020, found that out of more than 100 decision makers within the financial sector, payment and accounting services industries, 82% viewed open banking as an opportunity, and 58% believed that PSD2 had already had a positive impact on the Nordic economy. The research found that Nordic financial…

The Lithuanian-based e-payment network Paysera has announced its expansion plans to Spain, where the company Paysera España was established in the city of Valencia. Financial services and a trademark developed in Lithuania are brought to Spain by the owners of the gold retailer Quick Gold, Spanish businessmen who are starting to provide Paysera services under a joint activity agreement. Quick Gold is said to have a gold trade network stretching through more than 20 cities in Spain and consisting of almost 40 points of sale. “We, as a fintech company, already have clients in Spain. However, the start of our…

In the Baltic region, banks are embracing open banking with most of the major ones giving third-party providers regulated access to account information through developer portals. Data from Latvian open banking startup Nordigen and Openbankingtracker.com suggest that at least 11 banks in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have set up developer portals, in addition to digital banks N26 and Revolut, as well as banking platforms SatchelPay, Seven Seas and Nano, which all offer APIs for third-party providers. Currently, active developer portals in the region include those provided by Swedbank, SEB, Luminor, Citadele, Siauliu Bankas, Meridian Trade Bank, PrivatBank, Signet Bank, Coop…

Yapily, a London-based fintech startup, has announced plans to set up in Vilnius, Lithuania which is the company’s third European office. Yapily joins a growing number of UK fintechs including Revolut, Curve and Square that chose Lithuania as the location for its European hub. Yapily was established in 2017, shortly after the EU’s second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) granted third-party access to customer data of financial institutions. The legislation, which aims to stimulate competition in the financial services market, compelled providers of such services to innovate their API and open banking practices. Yapily’s client base include American Express, IBM, Intuit…

Swedish fintech startup Minna Technologies has raised €15.5 million (£14 million) during a Series B fundraising led by Element Ventures with support from MiddleGame Ventures, Nineyards Equity and Visa, to help retail banks enable their subscription management offering. The new Series B funding takes the total Minna Technologies has raised so far to over €23 million (£20.8 million). The funding will allow the company to scale the technology and bring its services to more customers across the world, with requests from all continents. Founded in 2016, Minna enables customers to manage subscription services via their bank’s app. The platform can…

Bank of Lithuania reported that the number and value of payments made through its payment system CENTROlink had doubled in 2020, while instant payments increased by more than four times. Keeping in this mind, Bank of Lithuania has changed the fees applied to CENTROlink services and will take a more rigorous approach in assessing payment service providers and their management reputation since the beginning of this year. “CENTROlink plays an important role in promoting the development of the payment services sector, and this is reflected in its performance indicators. Particularly notable is the recent surge in instant payments, which shows…

The Danish fintech startup scene has grown significantly over the last few years, rising from only 70 fintech companies in 2015 to more than 250 in 2021, according to numbers from industry trade group Copenhagen Fintech. In 2020, Danish fintechs raised a record of 2.588 billion DKK (US$427 million), up 82.25% from the previous year at 1.42 billion DKK (US$234 million). The 2020 Tradeshift deal (1.650 billion DKK or US$272 million) alone accounted for more than half of all funding raised by Danish fintech companies that year. As the sector continues to grow and mature, the number of partnerships between…

Paytrail, Nets Group’s subsidiary and Finnish online payment provider, has signed an agreement to acquire its competitor Checkout Finland from OP Financial Group. The acquisition supports Nets’ European e-commerce ambitions and further strengthens its presence in Finland. Checkout Finland, part of OP Financial Group, is a rapidly growing player in the Finnish payment landscape, serving both e-commerce and physical stores with a wide array of payment options, together with mobile payment solutions. Checkout Finland reportedly has around 8,000 ecommerce merchants. The completion of the transaction is subject to approval from the Finnish Financial Supervisory Authority (FIN-FSA), and the transaction is…

Ondato, a Lithuanian digital and biometric authentication startup, raised $2 million in seed funding and announced its expansion into Europe naming London as its new headquarters. The business will now be based in London’s Canary Wharf district. Following the capital raise from B2B accelerator Startup Wise Guys and venture firm OTB Ventures, Ondato now looks to expand its product development at its research and development hub in Lithuania, while expanding to the UK, Germany, France and Spain this year. Ondato’s platform provides a compliance management solution with photo and live video identity verification, data monitoring, screening, due-diligence, risk scoring and…

Juni, a Swedish-based banking platform for e-commerce and online marketing companies, has announced plans to establish a product development hub in Vilnius, Lithuania due to its large pool of tech talent and a close-knit fintech ecosystem. The company also plans to hire software developers, compliance officers and other specialists to fuel its expansion plans. After looking at many European locations, Juni decided that Vilnius is the best place to establish a new development hub. “With an amazing pool of tech talent and a close-knit fintech ecosystem, Lithuania is a great location to develop our platform,” said Samir El-Sabini, co-founder and…

Fintech News Baltic would like to take this opportunity to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. We will be taking a break from the 24th December 2020 to the 3rd January 2021. Until then, you can access some of our year-end articles that may be of interest to you. We look forward to seeing you all again on the 4th January 2021! https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/02/14/estonia-fintech-startups-map-2020-first/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/02/18/lithuanias-fintech-landscape-in-2019-and-2020-startup-map/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/03/25/8-baltic-fintech-startups-to-watch-in-2020/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/05/15/belarus-fintech-map-showcases-growing-ecosystem/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/01/27/latvia-fintech-startup-map-2020/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/12/21/2020-baltic-startup-scene-report-names-11-fast-growing-promising-fintech-startups/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/10/02/bank-of-latvias-report-revealed-changes-in-consumer-payment-habits/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/09/28/bank-of-lithuania-reports-digital-payments-pace-accelerating-despite-covid-19/ https://fintechbaltic.com/2020/12/23/lithuanias-fintech-industry-in-2020-review-of-this-years-key-developments/

Lithuania’s fintech ecosystem continued to grow in 2020 on the back of government-led initiatives, favorable regulations, and booming digital finance activities caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Q3 2020, Lithuania is home to more than 200 fintech companies and had issued 121 licenses going towards electronic money institutions (EMIs) and payment institutions (PIs). These figures make Lithuania one of the largest fintech hubs in Europe by number of licensed companies. The Bank of Lithuania is currently examining a total of 40 licensing applications, and in 2021, the central bank is expected to receive up to 100 new applications. Lithuania:…

Startup Wise Guys and EIT Digital have released their annual Baltic Startup Scene report, outlining the state of the Baltic startup ecosystem and the progress made over the past year. Amid COVID-19, the Baltics’ fintech sector saw a particular increase in the number of startups dealing with lending and debt, wealth management, insurtech, regtech and small and midsize business (SMB) finance, the research found. The year also saw the emergence of startups focusing on sustainable finance as well as finance for specific societal subsections, including the aging population, kids and unbanked individuals. One notable trend in 2020 was embedded fintech…

Over the first three quarters of 2020, the total number of payment transactions as well as income of electronic money and payment institutions (EMIs/PIs), which holds a significant share of the Lithuanian fintech sector, has continued to grow according to the Bank of Lithuania. “The performance results for the first nine months of 2020 show that the EMI/PI sector has not only withstood the COVID-19 shock but also continues to enjoy the benefits of electronic payments. The market is expected to grow further, as from the beginning of 2021 the activities of EMIs and PIs established in Lithuania after Brexit…