With Britain set to leave the European Union on March 29, financial companies from Britain and elsewhere are scrambling to secure electronic money institution licenses in FinTech-friendly Lithuania to make sure they can access the EU post-Brexit, according to a report from Reuters.
The issue is urgent because Britain hasn’t come to an agreement on what will happen after Brexit, which means that companies with licenses issued in the U.K. might not be able to serve customers in the EU.
There are about 100 companies looking for the licenses, and about a quarter of them are from Britain, according to Marius Jurgilas, a member of the board at the central bank.
“It seems that the companies, many of which are quite large, are behaving like a student who only starts worrying on the eve of an exam,” he said.
Jurgilas explained that Lithuania can process a license in as soon as three months, which is why a lot of companies are applying there. Other countries’ application processes can take up to a year.
Jurgilas didn’t give the names of the companies applying, but he did say, “It is an onslaught … We do not have the resources to process all the applicants. We have to pick and choose, prioritizing the least risky applicants.”
In October, Ireland also said it saw a surge in FinTech firms looking to expand operations in its country, which is also looking at more than 100 applications.
So far, Lithuania has processed 83 licenses, including one for a payment arm of Alphabet Inc. and a digital British bank called Revolut.
The central bank, Jurgilas said, will increase its regulatory oversight as it grows, and he denied insinuations that companies chose Lithuania because its regulatory actions were soft.
“(The) European Union has institutions which make sure that market supervisors in all its countries, including Lithuania, work to the same standard, and if any Lithuanian-registered bank grows into significant size, its supervision will be taken over by the European Central Bank,” he said.
Hey, we got frustrated.
We were planning our last Weekender of the year, and everything was feeling more than a little too cliched.
Staffer resolutions for the new year? Boring.
Resolutions for the payments sector and connected economy? Even more boring.
Then it hit us. 2024 was the year of artificial intelligence. All day, every day. So why not ask various AI models what they would recommend for resolutions for consumers as they navigate their everyday financial lives?
What would some New Year’s resolutions look like that relate to payments and payments habits?
Here are 20 of the best of what we got back.
1. I will not buy coffee with my credit card just to get points.
2. I will stop pretending to understand the stock market.
3. I resolve to stop using “password” as my password.
4. I will finally read the terms and conditions of my credit card.
5. I will not panic every time I see a bitcoin price alert.
6. I will try to remember my online banking password without resetting it every time.
7. I will not use my pet’s name as my PIN.
8. I will finally understand what blockchain is … or at least pretend to.
9. I will not ask my bank teller for stock tips.
10. I will stop blaming the ATM for my low balance.
11. I promise to stop referring to my credit card as “free money.”
12. I will resist the urge to invest in companies just because I like their logo.
13. I will not use “show me the money” as my banking app’s voice command.
14. I resolve to stop treating my piggy bank as a legitimate savings account.
15. I will not impulse-buy cryptocurrency after watching a YouTube tutorial.
16. I promise to stop calling my financial advisor just to chat about the weather.
17. I will resist the temptation to start my own cryptocurrency named after my cat.
18. I will not use “cha-ching” as my text alert for incoming transfers.
19. I resolve to stop referring to my wallet as “where money goes to die.”
20. I will finally admit that I have no idea what APR stands for.