Latitude59 x EstBAN Pitching Competition’s pre-finals took place last week with over 50 early-stage startups competing for the chance to pitch in front of investors at the Latitude59 stage. The top 10 finalists for the flagship startup and technology event did not feature any fintech startups. The grand prize is a €200 000 syndicate investment by EstBAN and €10 000 cash prize from Latitude59. The grand final of the competition will take place on August 28 in Tallinn which can also be viewed online. The top 10 startups to go through to the final round of the Latitude59 and EstBAN’s pitching competition…

In 2017, Estonia became amongst the first countries in Europe to provide a legal framework for business activities involving virtual currencies. Since then, the Baltic country has emerged as a preferred destination for crypto entrepreneurs to launch their businesses. In a space of three years, Estonia licensed more than 1,400 entities, but as part of a crackdown on financial crime, regulators recently stripped more than 500 of their permits this year, Bloomberg reported in June. So far, the crackdown has targeted companies that failed to start operations in Estonia within six months of getting a permit, Madis Reimand, who heads…

The finance industry in Latvia in general, and it’s capital Riga in particular, has been traditionally strong. Financial services have consistently ranked among the leading service export areas in the Baltic region, in large parts benefitting from Riga as the trading bridge between European, Nordic and CIS economies. A skilled and ambitious talent pool, advantageous geographic location and high-tech digital infrastructure has facilitated the recent meteoric rise of the IT sector. As the nascent IT industry is merging with strong roots in finance, the current innovation trends act as a catalyst for growth and innovation. Fintech is the strongest startup…

Bankera, a Lithuanian fintech startup, has started to offer business loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The model for Bankera Business Loans was developed at the European Commission hackathon as a response to COVID-19 back in April. Despite the easing of restrictions necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 around Europe, most SMEs are still at risk. In less than 3 months, the team behind the project was able to fully implement the lending solution which ultimately aims to aid a market segment that has been underserved by legacy banks. The solution accepts supplier’s guarantee as additional collateral. Also, by…

iDenfy announced a partnership with the Bank of Lithuania to offer digital coin buyers a convenient ID verification process based on artificial intelligence. The startups biometric verification solution will help verify customers’ identities to buy the LBCOIN complying with Know Your Customer (KYC) and other directives from the state law. iDenfy automates the identity verification process; their ID document detection solution can recognise documents by type and country. At present, they are supporting more than 1300 ID documents from more than 200 countries, making it easier for the bank to accept investors from different regions. The national bank using ID…

Opera, a browser provider headquartered in Oslo, announced its intention to purchase Fjord Bank subject to regulatory approval. The acquisition will enable Opera to further accelerate its fintech operations in Europe by launching new services aimed at improving consumers’ personal finances. With the acquisition of AB Fjord Bank, Opera will become the owner of a specialised bank, which will launch its first deposit and loan service in Lithuania during the summer of 2020. “Opera has been making innovative browsers and apps for 25 years. Our browsers are the personal choice of millions of people who prefer them over those that…

At the end of 2019, a total of 115 electronic money institutions (EMIs) and payment institutions (PIs) operated in Lithuania, comprising a one-fifth increase compared to the previous year. According to the audited annual financial statements, corporate income from licensed activities increased 1.6 times — from €41.08 million to €66.1 million. Within its supervisory mandate, the Bank of Lithuania mainly focused on the monitoring of compliance with anti-money laundering, own capital and customer funds protection requirements. “The audited results on the performance of EMIs and PIs in 2019 confirm that the relatively new market does not lack drive to scale…

The Bank of Lithuania will be issuing their blockchain-based LBCOIN digital collector coin LBCOIN on 23 July which claims to be the world’s first of its kind. The development of LBCOIN was initiated during the hackathon held by the central bank in June 2018. It consists of six digital tokens and one physical silver collector coin. They will issue 4,000 LBCOINs, i.e. 24,000 digital tokens and 4,000 physical collector coins. The coin is dedicated to the Act of Independence of Lithuania and its 20 signatories. Each token features one of the 20 signatories and belongs to one of the six…

Estonia is launching its long-awaited Digital Nomad Visa this month, an extension of their e-Residency programme. Digital nomads and remote workers have long faced ambiguity when working while they travel, often skirting the law by working while visiting a country with a tourist visa. While other countries like Costa Rica, Mexico, Portugal and the Czech Republic have introduced visas for digital nomads, so far these have primarily targeted freelancers. In contrast, the new Estonian Digital Nomad Visa (DNV) covers a broader range of digital nomads — in addition to freelancers, it also allows teleworking from Estonia if the person has…

Fintech Week Lithuania yesterday announced the 2020 winners of the first-ever Lithuanian Fintech Awards. The awards recognise the success stories of the past year across numerous areas in fintech, including payments, lending & investing, KYC and analytics. The awards were selected by a jury composed of Lithuanian and international experts in financial services. “As well as having optimum business conditions, a friendly and supportive regulator and a highly educated workforce, Lithuania is increasingly a place where entrepreneurs with a vision can turn their ideas into innovative solutions. It’s our pleasure to extend the first ever Lithuanian Fintech Awards to some…

The world is becoming more digital every second. There are more digital payment options than ever before. Digital wallets and financial apps are so convenient that most people would gladly swap their cash and cards for them. This isn’t just a wild guess, we have research to back it up. According to a recent finder.com survey, more than 110 million people in the United States prefer online to physical wallets. Besides the convenience, are there any other reasons to believe we can see a financial revolution in the coming decades? What can trigger this supposed revolution? How can it trigger…

Planet42, an Estonian fintech operating in Africa that focuses on providing access to mobility to the underbanked, has raised €2.2M ($2.4M). The seed round was led by Change Ventures. Private backers include Martin Villig (Bolt), Ragnar Sass (Pipedrive), Marko Virkebau (MeetFrank), Kristjan Vilosius (Katana MRP), and several other Estonian tech entrepreneurs. The company launched as CarGet in 2017 to service South Africa, a market well-known to co-founder and CFO Marten Orgna, who ran African Investments for Trigon Capital. Planet42 partners with dealerships across South Africa to offer access to a personal car to its largely underbanked clientele (9 out of…

Fintech Inn, the largest Fintech conference in the Baltic region, has been postponed to 28-29 April 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the organisers have come up with an online alternative this summer. Fintech Week Lithuania, taking place on June 15-18, will be providing a virtual conference experience with scheduled, keynote speeches, panel discussions, awards and B2B meetings. The four-day virtual event is going to be free of charge for all participants. “With our conference, we want to fill the gap of not only the postponed Fintech Inn, but also of the delayed Money 20/20 Europe that would have…

Belarus is home to a growing fintech startup ecosystem that now hosts more than 100 fintech companies and applications, according to the latest Belarus Fintech Map by the Belarus Fintech Hub and the Center for Economic Research. Payments, currency converters and cash transfers, as well as B2B fintech software developers, are the two most crowded fintech segments, with about 30 solutions and companies each. In the payments space, foreign solutions such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are operational in Belarus, in addition to local players such as Webpay. Online investment platforms, initial coin offerings (ICOs) and blockchain, is another…

Genome, a Lithuanian fintech company that operates as a financial ecosystem for personal and business use announced that it is showing support for all businesses that will struggle with the retailing of physical goods while switching to e-commerce. For all low-risk businesses that are already in Genome and new low-risk clients, the fintech company will open a business account for free and will cancel any monthly account fees for the next 3 months as well. So business owners can kickstart and put their business on a full roll even faster than before the pandemic circumstances. Offer will greatly benefit businesses…

Today, the Lithuanian startup ecosystem, which has been demonstrating rapid development rates for some time and can boast of successful results. According to the “Startup Lithuania” database, the number of innovative businesses registered in Lithuania already reached 1021. The number of Lithuanian startups is similar to that in Estonia (1017) but is strongly ahead of Latvia (352). “A couple of years ago, the Ministry of Economy and Innovation set a very ambitious goal – to have 1000 startups in Lithuania. Although, at that time only about 380 startups were registered in Lithuania’s startup database. Today, Lithuania has something to be…

You might have seen some updates from Revolut about account migration to their new European license. Revolut’s intention is to make sure that the client experience isn’t interrupted and that Revolut can be used normal. So that Revolut is fully prepared they going to start moving the Lithuanian customers to their new licensed European entity before Brexit. We know that you’ll have some questions about this, Revolut is answering it here: What is Revolut doing to prepare for Brexit? We have been planning to make sure our users are unaffected by any Brexit outcome. We have set up a licensed…

The fall of the Soviet Union brought about more than a dozen sovereign nations, each taking a distinct path from the other. Lithuania, the first country to regain its independence on March 11, 1990, has already developed its fair share of success stories – spanning from basketball victories to its first unicorn startup – Vinted. The strides made on the intersection of business, science and technology can be best described by the three completely different fields of Photonics, Life Sciences and Fintech. A perfect storm that shaped Lithuanian Fintech While Lithuanian Photonics and Life Sciences took decades to establish themselves…

The European Commission has announced it is supporting the upcoming Global Hack, an online hackathon organised by the world’s tech community. The Hackathon is designed to rapidly develop much needed solutions in the current COVID-19 pandemic. Kai Isand, head organiser of the Global Hack, believes the event is the best example of a startup mindset and how to act quickly when facing a challenge. “This is our call to hack the crisis – not only to brainstorm solutions to prevent and stop the spreading of a highly-infectious disease but to think about how our lives will be different after this.…

The fintech sector in the Baltic states is rapidly growing on the back of proactive governments that have set sights on establishing a favorable environment for the industry to thrive. Lithuania launched a regulatory sandbox in 2017 to allow fintechs and financial services companies to test out innovative products, Estonia, the birthplace of some of the world’s leading fintechs including TransferWise and Guardtime, has embraced blockchain and electronic ID, and Latvia have seen its fintech industry grow steadily over the past years with several of its startups, including Mintos and Twino, expanding rapidly across the region. With fintech gaining speed…