Bank of Lithuania: we understand risks, nevertheless we will make Lithuania Fintech centre
The Chairman of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania Mr. Vitas Vasiliauskas states, that while he understands what kind of dangers establishment of small foreign financial technology companies might have, nevertheless the process will not be stopped due to that.
During the meeting with the journalists on Friday, Mr. Vasiliauskas stated, that Lithuania is being geared towards becoming an international centre for payment services and implied that “this process is progressing rather well”.
“We indeed are putting a lot of investment into this area, we want our payment system to be based on the 24/7 model. We are already connecting payment institutions directly to Central Bank, rather than through a some kind of intermediate link, and of course, for us it is very important that a tablespoon of tar would not spoil a honey barrel”, – said the head of Bank of Lithuania.
According to him, when trying to attract so called “fintech” companies and payment institutions to come to Lithuania, very high money laundering prevention requirements are being set.
“This is our headache and we will pay a lot of attention to this matter, because here, I think, lies the biggest risk. We understand, that among attracted companies there can be companies of different kinds, therefore sometimes we should accept failure as a part of natural process. It is important, that this would not become systemic”, – says Mr. Vasiliauskas.
VŽ wrote, that after the decision by the Government to transform Lithuania into a centre of financial technology companies (fintech), the ice has started to move: one after another companies from this area has started entering the country, and there is a number of companies waiting at the door of Central Bank. It is stated, that interest in Lithuania is being displayed by companies from the United Kingdom, Estonia, Latvia, Israel, Germany, Singapore, Philippines.
Portal “bankingtech.com” recently wrote, that the Bank of Lithuania has publicly committed to answer any company who contacts the Bank of Lithuania with a licence based inquiry within 1 week, and, when positive answer is granted, the Bank of Lithuania will help in sorting out formalities of acquiring the actual in 2-6 months.
The Bank of Lithuania states, that the advantage of our country is possibility for payment institutions to connect to SEPA payment space in a rapid and simple way through the infrastructure of the Central Bank rather than through commercial banks.
About plans to start business in Lithuania recently has announced such “fintech” and payment institutions as United Kingdom’s financial technology start-up “Revolut”, Chinese international payment giant “International Business Settlement”, payment platform “Moneta International”, founded by Israeli investors.
Main Lithuanian business newspaper Verslo zinios
9 December 2016
by Paulius Ciulada
Original article in Lithuanian:
http://vz.lt/rinkos/2016/12/09/centrinis-bankas-suprantame-rizikas-bet-vis-vien-lietuva-darysime-fintech-centru#ixzz4SLLnWvkO
The Bank of Lithuania combines the functions of a central bank and the financial supervisory authority (regulator) in Lithuania. Regulatory behaviour and significantly lower incorporation, licensing and maintenance costs makes Lithuania preferred jurisdiction for Fintech companies around the world. Licensing of the Fintech company in one of the member states within the European Union (EU) opens business opportunities to act and provide services in all other EU states without any restrictions.
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