Google Gets EU eMoney License

Google Payment Lithuania, a unit of Alphabet’s Google, was granted an electronic money institution license by The Board of the Bank of Lithuania.

Finextra, citing Google, reported that with the license Google can issue and redeem electronic money and provide payment services. “The end of this year reflects our efforts and experience of the past few years in actively developing a FinTech-conducive ecosystem in Lithuania. Our regulatory environment and the benefits it offers have been acknowledged by both startups and world-class FinTech companies,” said Board Member Marius Jurgilas, according to Finextra.

With the electronic money institution license, Google can get into the digital payments market, ensuring a smooth payment market in Europe as well as work on other payment services for consumers residing in the European Economic Area, noted the report. The Lithuanian FinTech initiative now covers more than 100 licensed companies, with most of them involved in payments, electronic money and peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding.

Google isn’t the only one that was granted a license by Lithuania in recent weeks. Earlier this month Revolut, the U.K. digital bank, said it received approval for a banking license in Europe by the European Central Bank and that it will first test in Lithuania. Calling it a huge milestone, Revolut said when announcing it that it won’t automatically turn into a bank, but will use the next few months to build and test its banking services as well as work with regulators to remove any restrictions to the license. “We’ll start by testing the new license in Lithuania next year and once we’re happy that everything is running smoothly, we’ll look to expand into other European markets later in the year,” Revolut said in a blog at the time.  “We’ll aim to implement the banking license as transparently as possible so that you can track our progress and find the answers to your questions.”