Lithuanian Ministry of Finance, the Bank of Lithuania and other state institutions continue discussions about actions, which may accelerate and promote FinTech industry‘s development in Lithuania. Soon the proposals will be presented to the Government and it is expected that already in March new innovations for the market participants and the public will be introduced.
Lithuania has already shown that it aims to become one of the center locations for FinTech companies. As it was noted by the vice-minister for Finance Loreta Maskaliovienė, the Ministry of Finance at the moment is preparing a further package of measures which will be improved according to the comments of institutions and market participants. She added that the state seeks to meet this rapidly evolving industry’s expectations – it would let the country to attract more investments and create skilled job places.
„This step confirms that state institutions are determined to more closely focus on the development of the new FinTech sector and it shows that Lithuania present itself as a state that is able to provide attractive legal framework and conditions for the further growth of this sector“, – says I. Karulaitytė-Kvainauskienė, attorney at law of ECOVIS ProventusLaw.
Last year the Parliament of Lithuania adopted the Laws on Crowdfunding, Consumer credit and Real estate related credit legislative amendments, allowing to operate crowdfunding and peer to peer lending platforms. The government has authorized companies to use more tools in order to remotely identify their customers (KYC). The Bank of Lithuania has developed a new special program “Newcomer” to attract new FinTech companies (in some foreign countries the equivalent is called “sandbox”). The Bank of Lithuania gives access to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) infrastructure for a wider range of participants than any other EU country.
Lithuania continues to be an attractive location for FinTech companies due to its excellent infrastructure of communication and information technologies and innovation-friendly professionals. Lithuania is 1st in the European Union in terms of broadband speed and fiber-to-premises penetration (FTTP). In 2015 Lithuania was voted 1st globally by the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook for fulfilling business requirements for communication technologies.
Issues on FinTech will also be discussed on 18 May 2017 at the Conference organized by Lithuanian Ministry of Finance and the Institution of Lithuanian financial markets.
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