Lithuania: A David slaying Goliath in the fintech arena
You know a country is taking technology seriously when its President gives the keynote speech at a fintech conference and expresses how important this sector of industry is to the country.
I’m impressed with Lithuania’s spirit, commitment and passion for fintech
That’s exactly what happened at Rockit’s Fintech Day held in Vilnius, Lithuania earlier this month, with Gitanas Nausėda, President of the Republic of Lithuania, taking to the stage to open proceedings.
President Nausėda was promptly followed by the county’s Minister of Finance, Gintarė Skaistė, who reiterated the importance of the growth and success of fintech within Lithuania. She talked through the country’s five-year fintech strategy, which is based on five key principles:
- Prioritising fintech by fostering the growth of existing companies and investing in R&D.
- Attracting foreign fintechs by offering streamlined compliance and licencing procedures along with favourable business terms.
- Making Lithuania the pinnacle of fintech excellence by implementing high-quality regulations and strong ethical behaviour amongst companies.
- Remaining a secure and dependable jurisdiction by implementing transparent regulations and strong measures for cybercrime, anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing.
- Gaining universal recognition as a European fintech hub by participating in EU fintech initiatives and increasing awareness internationally.
By focusing on these five key principles, Lithuania aims to achieve several ambitious goals for its fintech sector, including a 30% annual growth rate in turnover, 35 million customers served by domestic fintech companies and increased competitiveness in the international market.
In a country of less than 3 million people, over 7,000 people work at almost 280 fintech companies. There are 10 unicorns, including Revolut’s European banking business. And what’s really impressive about their fintech community is the gender equality, with women making up 45% of the total fintech workforce and holding 43% of the executive positions at these firms. It’s also a pretty young workforce, with 88% under 45 years old. Invest Lithuania, an organisation focused on growing and promoting Lithuania’s fintech community, also claims the country has issued the most fintech licences in Europe. All in all, when it comes to fintech, Lithuania is punching well above its weight.
Back to Rockit’s Fintech Day. A first for me at a conference was the grand entrance of a brass band making their way through the conference halls and onto the main stage. It certainly got everyone ready for the day.
With over 650 attendees, it was an impressive turnout. This highlighted to me that this was not just another conference, but something important to those coming, which was backed up by the impressive array of speakers. There’s too many to mention them all, but it was great to hear Morten Rongaard – the self-proclaimed OG of NFTs – define Web 4.0 as a combination of crypto, the Internet of Things (IOT), the metaverse and AI.
However, for me, the standout presentation was from finfluencer Linas Beliūnas from Flutterwave talking about AI. With generative AI specifically being the hot topic of 2023, Linas explained not only how quickly and big this market has grown in such a short space of time, but also how quickly financial services companies were adopting it. He explained why Apple is the biggest fintech in the world and gave some great examples of AI in finance today, including Elon Musk’s Grok, JP Morgan’s DocLLM and Bloomberg-GPT.
Over the course of the conference, one question kept popping into my mind. How does such a small country grow so many unicorns that are mostly global players? It was only when speaking to a fellow panellist at the conference – Liudas Kanapienis, founder of OnDato – that I think the penny dropped. He explained that in many countries, the local market is big enough for a fintech, however most start-ups in Lithuania begin with a global vision because their local market is not necessarily large enough. A simple yet striking rationale.
I also had the chance to meet with Vytautas Danta, deputy CEO of Revolut. I’ll be writing more on this meeting in particular in the future, but I was amazed by the company’s customer growth to 35 million users globally, of which 25 million are in Europe. Revolut was quick to get its banking licence from Lithuania once the UK left the EU.
I’ve been to many fintech conferences and few really standout. Even the big Money20/20 event is becoming stale and vendor-centric in my opinion. I have to say, for me, Rockit’s Fintech Day was highly informative, it had high-profile speakers with great wisdom to share, and an audience that was there to not only gain valuable insights but also network and make key contacts.
This week, I’m just saying that Lithuania is like David in the epic battle with Goliath (which I suspect a number of countries will claim to be, not least my home country the UK). I’m impressed with Lithuania’s spirit, commitment and passion for fintech, and as a serial entrepreneur, I always want to see David win!
About the author
Dharmesh Mistry has been in banking for more than 30 years both in senior positions at Tier 1 banks and as a serial entrepreneur. He has been at the forefront of banking technology and innovation, from the very first internet and mobile banking apps to artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR).
He has been on both sides of the fence and he’s not afraid to share his opinions.
He founded proptech start-up AskHomey (sold to a private investor in spring 2023) and is an investor and mentor in proptech and fintech. He also co-hosts the Demystify Podcast.
Follow Dharmesh on X @dharmeshmistry and LinkedIn.
Read all his “I’m just saying” musings here.
