Author: Fintechnews Baltic

Nayax, a global payment solutions and management platform for unattended retail, has announced the opening of a new office within Europe, Nayax Europe UAB. Nayax Europe will be situated in Lithuania, the issuing country of the required operating license for the EEA zone and will be hiring a professional staff. Nayax Europe, with all of Nayax offices, practice the most secure transactions, adhering to full GDPR and PSD2 compliancy. Nayax’s certifications include EMV level 1 + 2, PCI, to ensure satisfaction and trust to all its customers and to their consumers. Yair Nechmad, CEO, Nayax Ltd said, “Nayax chose Lithuania…

Funderbeam is proud to announce the publication of their first playbook. In cooperation with Latvian designer Arta Citko, Funderbeam’s CEO Kaidi Ruusalepp created a playbook about foundership and what it requires to be a good founder. The book aims to target schools, youth programs and accelerators for children and teens to educate them about a topic which is rarely touched upon. “Foundership is such an important topic but it is rarely talked about and certainly not taught in school. As a founder myself, I think it is my responsibility to give encouragement to the next generation of founders.” The idea…

Bank of Lithuania – the country’ regulator – has introduced a procedure which will allow companies to apply remotely for Fintech licences. T his regulatory technology  tool willfacilitate the process of submitting and managing applications for e-money and payment institution licences. By introducing this one-click solution, Bank of Lithuania – already the regulatory body able to issue licences in record times – will become even more approachable for Fintech innovators across the world. As of July 2, companies looking to access the 512-million strong EU market will be able to apply directly online for a variety of financial licences valid…

Dubbed the ‘global generation’, over half of all millennials would consider moving abroad for work opportunities, and an increasing amount are starting their own business ventures. With possibilities of owning a home becoming increasingly difficult in the world’s cities, rent prices soaring and the political climate changing, research shows that millennials are less financially stable compared to previous generations. GoCompare has released data to reveal the best places for millennials to start a business, measuring the ease of registering property, starting and running a business on a day-to-day level, trading across borders, and diversity, among other metrics. New research has…

Latvia is home to a nascent but rapidly growing startup scene. Though still trying to catch-up with neighboring Estonia, which benefited from the early successes of the likes of Skype and TransferWise, the country is starting to build a reputation for itself in sectors including fintech. Latvia has much to boast about: it occupies the third position in the OECD in terms of providing access to fiber-optic broadband Internet, has a multilingual population and a highly talented labor pool, and the presence of several programs launched by the government is making Latvia attractive to entrepreneurs. In 2017, the government introduced…

Nordea customers in Finland can now receive instant Euro payments in seconds from friends and business partners from Europe. This includes at any time of the day, seven days a week, all year round. The new pan-European Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) instant payments scheme has made the dream of lightning fast transfers a reality. By making instant Euro transfers available to its customers in Finland, Nordea has become the first bank in the Nordics to offer this breakthrough service. Instantaneous Modern consumers increasingly expect to be able to make purchases at any time of the day and for their…

The Nordic and Baltic region is increasingly becoming a hotspot for fintech innovation. Fintech success is not in short supply in the region, which has so far given birth to half of Europe’s six fintech unicorns, according to a new report by MagnaCarta, Fintech Mundi and Mastercard. These startups are Swedish online payment platform Klarna, Swedish payment startup iZettle which was bought by PayPal in May, and international money transfer platform TransferWise, an Estonian startup that has since relocated to the UK. These have a cumulative valuation of US$6.3 billion, surpassing the rest of Europe’s fintech unicorns with US$5 billion.…

Estonia is well-known in Europe for being a highly developed country in the tech space with approximately 30.6 startups per 100,000 inhabitants. The country is now poised to become a leading fintech hub. Digital innovators like Skype and TransferWise, as well as initiatives such as e-Government and e-Residency, have earned Estonia such praise. Skype, the world’s largest peer-to-peer communications platform, was acquired by eBay for US$2.6 billion in 2005. Payment startup TransferWise, which has since relocated to London, raised US$396.4 million in funding and is now part of the unicorn club. Government push The Estonia government has been supporting the…

Lithuania, which have been promoting itself as gateway destination to the European market for fintech startups from across the world, has seen its digital finance and fintech sector grow rapidly in the past years. In 2017, the country saw no less than 35 new fintech companies being incorporated, according to the Lithuania Fintech Report 2017. One of the prominent fintech startups that took the plunge include Singapore’s InstaRem. “We were looking for a perfect headquarter location in the EU,” said Prajit Nanu, co-founder and CEO at InstaReM. “In Lithuania we found a fintech-friendly and fast regulator, as well as excellent…

BearingPoint’s RegTech platform Abacus has been taken up by Citadele Bank Lithuania. With the Lithuanian commercial bank, the international management and technology consultancy BearingPoint adds a new country to its global footprint. Citadele Bank decided for BearingPoint’s tried and tested platform Abacus360 Banking to meet the European Central Bank’s (ECB) growing requirements on AnaCredit (Analytical Credit Datasets) reporting. As part of AnaCredit, roughly 100 data attributes are required to be reported. Local Lithuanian attributes are currently developed and integrated by BearingPoint to meet local AnaCredit requirements. Over the past two decades, regulation has expanded on multiple fronts and will continue…

Alternative lending observes a continuously increasing number of Millennials and Generation Z. According to the Latvian P2P platform Robo.cash, this tendency is supported by the interest of young investors in a simple and comfortable source of additional income and the positive experience gained at the existing peer-to-peer platforms. Against stagnating interest rates on deposits and cautious lending policies of banks, alternative lending is attracting a greater attention of investors and borrowers among the younger generation, who are used to digital technologies and consider P2P platforms as a profitable and comfortable financial tool. The own data of Robo.cash show that Millennials…

The Baltic states, which comprise Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, are seeking to create an environment favoring entrepreneurship, modern technologies and international talents. Despite being a small market – these three countries comprise all together around 6 million inhabitants -, the high level of technology penetration and technology penetration have produced a disproportionally high number of tech hardware and software startups ever since the beginning of the digital revolution. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Baltic states are among the most innovative in the European Union when taking into account both startup creation as well as the creativity of…

Lithuania is looking to become the first ever country to offer entities from around the world the opportunity to register and manage companies using blockchain technology. These Virtual Limited Liability Companies (VLLCs) would benefit from an innovation-friendly “sandbox” regulatory system that helps newcomers to set up operations. VLLCs would give companies a range of advantages. These include the ability for the company to be remotely managed, and for all share transactions to be fully transparent, as they would be performed entirely on an immutable blockchain. The Lithuanian Centre of Registers (the manager of the country’s Register of Legal Entities) has…

22 European countries signed this week a Declaration on the establishment of a European Blockchain Partnership. Switzerland is not yet in that list. The Partnership will be a vehicle for cooperation amongst Member States to exchange experience and expertise in technical and regulatory fields and prepare for the launch of EU-wide blockchain applications across the Digital Single Market for the benefit of the public and private sectors. This should ensure that Europe continues to play a leading role in the development and roll-out of blockchain technologies. Blockchain is technology for promoting user trust. It makes it possible to share on-line…

The Estonian peer-to-peer lending platform iuvo reached a significant milestone – over 10M EUR invested by investors from more than 80 countries from around the world. For the last year and a half, the platform is growing steadily with an average monthly growth rate of 34% of the invested funds. The statistics show that the interest in the peer-to-peer lending industry is growing at a rapid pace across Europe. The most interest iuvo indicates from countries such as Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, and Austria, which means that the industry is getting more and more pan-European and we hope to see…

The startup world is being rapidly transformed by Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). Instead of giving up shares, many startups are now raising finance by issuing their own blockchain-based crypto coins to investors around the world. The US, Singapore, and Switzerland are currently the leading jurisdictions for entrepreneurs considering where to launch their ICOs, although all governments are still figuring out how to regulate ICOs. Unfortunately for both entrepreneurs and investors, that means ICOs continue to operate in what could be described as legal grey areas at best, while the lack of clarity and trust is holding back the benefits of…

According to the study of the growing market of the alternative finance, conducted by the European P2P platform Robo.cash, Switzerland, Latvia, Russia and Argentina are expected to join the global alternative lending market in the coming 2-3 years. According to the results of the Swiss market of the alternative finance, Switzerland is among those countries which are expected to show remarkable growth. In 2014 the University of Cambridge estimated its volume of transactions to ca. €12 million per year and put Switzerland after Sweden, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, etc. In 2015 the volume of the local P2P market grew to…

Merely seven months after the launch, peer-to-peer lending platform VIAINVEST has reached a milestone of 10 million EUR loans funded through its platform. Listed consumer loans issued by the alternative financial services provider VIA SMS Group in Czech Republic, Poland, Latvia and Spain were funded by investors from more than 30 countries. Peer-to-peer lending platform VIAINVEST was launched in December 2016 and has grown significantly since then. “We are excited to be a part of a continuously growing peer-to-peer and fintech community,” says Eduards Lapkovskis, CEO of VIAINVEST. “Success of VIAINVEST shows that we have set the right goal –…

The Baltic region, which consists of the three countries in northern Europe on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, has seen its fintech scene grow significantly in the past few years. One segment in particular is peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding. Today, these countries host numerous platforms focusing on consumer lending, business loans and invoice factoring, among many other areas. Here is our pick of the top eight most promising peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding platforms in the Baltic states. Viainvest VIAINVEST is a new peer-to-peer lending marketplace provided by Latvia-based VIA SMS Group. The platform…

Launched in late-2016, VIAINVEST is a new peer-to-peer lending marketplace provided by Latvia-based VIA SMS Group. The platform allows both individuals and companies to invest into loans originated by non-banking lenders. Commenting on the launch, Eduards Lapkovskis, Member of the Board at VIA SMS Group, stated:     “By launching VIAINVEST we aim to ensure an easy-to-use P2P lending marketplace that offers secure and transparent investment opportunities. Our priority is to focus on the needs of each investor despite their level of experience.” Loans available for investment on VIAINVEST are originated by the VIA SMS Group and its associated companies operating…