Lithuania is seeking to attract FinTech companies from China

30/10/2017

The central Bank of Lithuania seeks to attract financial technologies (FinTech) companies from China. This week the Bank of Lithuania initiated seminar in Beijing (China), where Lithuania’s FinTech potential is presented to the leaders in Chinese e-commerce, payment and other sectors.

It is estimated that during recent years, Chinese direct investments into Lithuania have increased almost six-fold. According to Marius Jurgilas, Member of the Board of the Bank of Lithuania, Chinese e-commerce, payment and FinTech sectors have been rapidly expanding and are looking for business development opportunities across the globe. As Mr. Jurgilas states, Lithuania undoubtedly attracted the industry’s attention as it has much to offer: FinTech-friendly regulatory environment, as well as the Bank of Lithuania-managed payment system, which offers access to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and might open the door for non-EU countries to Europe’s multibillion-euro payments market and much more.

I. Karulaitytė-Kvainauskienė, attorney at law of ECOVIS ProventusLaw, specialising in licensing of financial institutions, agrees that the interest from Chinese companies in Lithuania as a residence for FinTech company in Europe is growing. “Recently we have observed an increasing interest of China investors into Lithuania drawn by Lithuania’s financial infrastructure, people, and business-friendly environment. More information is needed for Chinese companies about the possibilities in investment into Lithuanian financial sector to attract companies looking for opportunities in the EU market”, – says Ms. I. Karulaityte-Kvainauskienė.

The seminar exploring opportunities for cooperation will host DHgate, the founder of a business-to-business e-commerce platform, as well as representatives from payment, financial and economic cooperation organisations and the academia.

Lithuania has already introduced several measures that might be appealing to financial institutions: a particularly fast authorisation process and a broad choice of business models – from e-money or payment institutions to specialised banks – a unique payment institution which has no equivalents in EU.

In addition, companies designing innovative financial products and business solutions will be given the possibility to test them in a new regulatory sandbox created by the Bank of Lithuania.

Development of a FinTech-conducive regulatory and supervisory ecosystem as well as fostering of innovation in the financial sector is one of the Bank of Lithuania’s strategic directions for 2017–2020. Together with other state authorities, the Bank of Lithuania aims at creating a FinTech-friendly environment that would attract new companies and encourage them to incubate new products in the country.

The article is prepared on basis of the information published by the Bank of Lithuania.