Nordic Capital Fund announced the acquisition of Signicat, a high-growth provider of digital identity and signature solutions. Nordic Capital will, in close partnership with the company’s management and existing shareholder Viking Venture, accelerate Signicat’s international expansion and strengthen the company’s market-leading position and unique product offering. Founded in Trondheim, Norway in 2007, Signicat leads innovation in verified digital identity solutions, reducing risk while providing a smart and intuitive user experience. Its solutions enable companies and institutions, both in regulated and non-regulated industries, to offer efficient and user-friendly advanced online authentication, identification verification and electronic signature solutions. Signicat has more than…

Lithuania highly visible on the global Fintech innovation map also becomes a relevant risk management competence centre. By the initiative of Minister of Finance Vilius Šapoka, nine national institutions joined forces for a common goal – to promptly anticipate Fintech potential risks and effectively manage them. On Monday these intentions were endorsed by signing the inter-institutional memorandum. The Memorandum on Cooperation and Exchange of Information in Risk Management in Financial Innovation and Financial Technology was signed by Minister of Finance Vilius Šapoka, Minister of the Interior Eimutis Misiūnas, Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania Vitas Vasiliauskas, Director…

Marius Jurgilas, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, met with experts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, sharing Lithuania’s experience in creating a fintech-conducive regulatory environment, which falls in line with international best practices. Given rapid advances in financial technology that are transforming the economic and financial landscape, in October 2018 the IMF and the World Bank put forward the Bali Fintech Agenda. The agenda advances key considerations with regard to fintech and its regulation, distilling them into 12 elements (including recommendations on stimulating growth of the sector and preventing the associated risks)…

In the ever-growing European alternative finance market, Lithuania – together with other Baltic countries – shows peculiarly favourable results among the crowdlending operators Common trends in the Baltic region highlight alternative lending as a serious challenge for traditional banks and credit unions. Last year, in all of the Baltic states, alternative lending played a more significant role than ever. During the first three quarters of 2018 (January-September), 1,082 billion euro were issued through alternative lending channels. This accounted for 8.27% of the total lending activities within the region as banks and credit unions issued approximately 12 billion euro, as stated…

The Lithuanian subsidiary of London-based cross-border payments facilitator Earthport  – Earthport Payment Services UAB – has been granted a Payment Institution license by the Bank of Lithuania. The license allows Earthport to continue providing payment services across the European Union. Having been granted the PI license by the Bank of Lithuania, Earthport can also benefit from having direct access to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) via the Bank’s proprietary CENTROlink payment system. Rosie Faulkner, General Manager at Earthport Lithuania stated “We are really excited to grow in Lithuania; we chose it because it provides a great fit for Earthport…

With one of the highest rates of startups per capita in Europe, Estonia is considered by many as a startup paradise, a status it earned thanks to the numerous governmental initiatives focusing on supporting technology and small businesses. Image Credit: Skype’s Facebook Page The country’s startup success started in 2003 with Skype, which was built and developed in Estonia. The success of Skype had an enormous impact on the local startup ecosystem as it represented the first time that a truly global multinational startup was being created and nurtured from this relatively small country. Fast forward 16 years and Estonia…

The Lithuanian capital Vilnius is emerging as the world’s biggest tech sandbox. At an important crossroads of Europe, Vilnius has always been a cosmopolitan city with important commerce that attracted a mix of cultures, languages and religions. Today, the city is emerging as a hub for technology startups that has seen it already rise to become one of Europe’s most important Fintech locations. One of the keys to its success has been the creation of sandbox environments that encourage businesses to test their products under controlled settings and with help of regulators. Vilnius now has five official sandboxes where this…

Blockchain.com announced the opening of a new office in Vilnius, Lithuania. The office, which is Blockchain’s fifth location, will be home to dozens of designers and customer success agents as well as Android Engineers, Backend Engineers and Quality Engineers who will work alongside engineers in our London, New York, and San Francisco engineering offices on strategic customer-facing projects. “For our next expansion project, we looked at several options in Europe. Vilnius quickly rose to the top of the list because of its mature talent pool and commitment to innovation,” said Peter Smith, CEO of Blockchain.com. Candace Lee, Head of People…

On 17th of February 2019 The Bank of Lithuania granted a license to Kontomatik UAB to provide AIS (Account Information Service License Provider) services in 10 countries without the need to open local branches. According to the decision of the Bank of Lithuania, Kontomatik can now provide services in accordance with the PSD2 Directive in Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, as well as in Poland, Portugal and Spain. In the case of Great Britain, Kontomatik UAB applied for a temporary, 3-year passport of the AIS license. Kontomatik is the first Polish company that operates as a regulated provider…

Taking into account current market developments and evolving regulatory regimes as well as seeking to ensure a level playing field for all financial market participants, the Board of the Bank of Lithuania has updated its position on virtual assets and initial coin offering. The position is intended for existing and potential financial market participants as well as entities intending to organise initial coin offerings or provide the possibility for Lithuanian investors to invest in this product type. The term virtual currency, which was used in the previous version of the position, has been substituted with the term virtual assets. The…

NordicNinja VC by JB Nordic Ventures has officially launched its new €100M VC fund in partnership with Panasonic, Honda, Omron, and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). T he fund will help Nordic and Baltic scale-up companies enter the technology business ecosystem in Japan and across Asia. “Today, the Nordic startup ecosystem and Japanese blue-chip companies represent something of a missed opportunity in terms of potential growth and cooperation. Japan is still on its way to finding its place in the startup innovation space and this fund is directly designed to support these connections between the Nordics and Asia,”…

Factris, the Amsterdam-based provider of factoring services has merged its operations with Lithuanian Fintech company Debifo. Factris intends to scale its development team and operations in Lithuania to accelerate the development of its factoring platform and execute on its ambition to become the Pan- European leader of working capital solutions for SMEs. Factris provides working capital to SMEs throughout Europe by purchasing their unpaid invoices. Their state-of-the-art platform combines in-depth financial know-how with new technologies, enabling easy processing, strong risk mitigation, and automated credit management. Factris is backed by European venture capital firm Speedinvest and has strong financial partners allowing…

A Lithuanian electronic payment system “Paysera” makes one more step and firmly establishes in all Baltic states by starting operating in Estonia. A customer service center has been opened in Tallinn. It is planned that a sales department will commence work this spring. “Development abroad is one of our key strategic goals. We are fully operating in Latvia, so stepping into the Estonian market is our ultimate establishment in the Baltic region. In Estonia we are in-demand even without investing in advertising or active sales. The development model successfully adopted in Bulgaria has been a great incentive for us –…

Over the year, the number of Lithuanian-based FinTech companies and their employees grew by more than 40%. In addition, by number of licensed electronic money institutions, Lithuania was in the lead in continental Europe. The results of the FinTech sector in 2018 were presented by the representatives of the Bank of Lithuania, the Ministry of Finance, Invest Lithuania and Rise Vilnius at the event taking place today at Rise Vilnius, a FinTech co-working space. “With the ever-accelerating technological progress, we strive to strike a balance between speed and safety and to create a regulatory environment supportive to both business and…

The Board of the Bank of Lithuania has granted Google Payment Lithuania UAB an electronic money institution license authorizing to issue and redeem electronic money as well as provide payment services. “The end of this year reflects our efforts and experience of the past few years in actively developing a FinTech-conducive ecosystem in Lithuania. Our regulatory environment and the benefits it offers have been acknowledged by both start ups and world-class FinTech companies,” said Board Member Marius Jurgilas. Google Payment Lithuania UAB is part of Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company). Having secured an electronic money institution license, the company will…

If fintech licensing is a race, then Lithuania is definitely ahead of the pack. According to data gathered from regulatory bodies of different European countries, the relatively small Baltic country is second only to Britain when it comes to Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licenses and it isn’t that far behind when it comes to Payments Institution (PI) licenses. Data shows that Lithuania has a total of 39 full EMI licenses and 33 PI licenses. The eyes of the financial technology industry have been set on Lithuania for quite some time, and this attention has only intensified after Revolut was granted both…

Nordea is launching Instant Reporting, a new Open Banking solution that enables corporate customers to access their own accounts and integrate real-time data with their own systems and processes. It is the first offering from Nordea that moves beyond legal requirements in PSD2 and turns Open Banking into a commercially viable product. PSD2 (Payment Services Directive) is an EU directive that requires banks to open to third parties to offer their services to the bank’s customers. This is intended to increase competition in the banking sector and is often called Open Banking. Nordea has chosen to see this as an…

Revolut together with the Bank of Lithuania have announced that the challenger bank received a Specialised Bank License, which will allow offering and passporting an even wider range of solutions to customers in Europe. The move of getting a license in mainland Europe has been considered by many a hedge against Brexit. Having received both the specialised Bank license and Electronic Money Institution facilitated by the Bank of Lithuania, Revolut is now effectively safe from any decision regarding Britain leaving the EU. From 2019, Revolut will start accepting deposits and offering retail and business lending, making it an even bigger rival for traditional banks.…

Paytend Technology, a Chinese company developing and selling financial services software, has announced choosing Vilnius, Lithuania, for its European headquarters. The company plans to hire up to 50 highly qualified professionals in the fields of sales marketing, compliance, product development and customer support in the following 3 years. One of the main reasons why the company, which will operate in Lithuania via subsidiary Paytend Europe, chose Lithuania was the country’s favourable and flexible regulatory environment. “Obtaining an electronic money institution license from the Bank of Lithuania was a straightforward, transparent and efficient process,” Junqing Li, CEO of Paytend Europe, say.…

The Astana Financial Services Authority (“AFSA”) has established a cooperation with Bank of Lithuania. The Agreement provides a framework for co-operation, information sharing and referrals in fintech innovations area between the AFSA and Bank of Lithuania. Parties believe that through co-operation with each other, they will be able to further the promotion of innovation in their respective markets. In this light, the framework also anticipates potential development of joint innovation projects on the application of key technologies such as digital and mobile payments, blockchain and distributed ledgers, big data, flexible platforms (API), and other areas of new technologies and services,…