Bank of Lithuania promises one-week response to fintech licence enquiries
Lithuania keen on fintech
Bank of Lithuania, the country’s central bank and regulator, promises to provide preliminary answers to financial institution licence enquiries within one week, “the fastest turnaround in the EU”.
The programme – Newcomer – will apply to companies that are already licensed in another EU country and would like to move their place of residence to Lithuania.
Depending on the type of licence, the full authorisation will take two to six months to achieve.
The central bank is keen to promote Lithuania as an investment location for fintech companies that are worried about Brexit.
“We have made a number of improvements to the system which will be felt by companies from the very start,” states Marius Jurgilas, Bank of Lithuania’s board member. “We can ensure that a company which is licensed in another country and wishes to set up in Lithuania can expect to receive a preliminary response with regard to a licence in Lithuania within a week.”
Other advantages include access to SEPA for e-money and payment agencies through the infrastructure of Bank of Lithuania, “enabling them to avoid the broking services of many commercial banks”.
Also, Bank of Lithuania treats providers of payment services as financial institutions, and hence “will allocate them a code that generates accounts in the IBAN format by no later than the next business day”.
The central bank says companies are going to establish operations in Lithuania in the near future: Revolut (a UK-based payments firm), International Business Settlement (an international settlement company from China) and Moneta International (a payment platform developer from Israel).
Also, Contis Group, an alternative banking and payment solutions company, is planning to transfer its operational service centre to Lithuania.
Banking Technology will be putting Lithuania’s fintech scene in the spotlight in the upcoming edition of the magazine. Watch this space!
