The last month of the year came - we wish it to be fruitful, calm & bright! Another issue of FintechHubLT Newsletter is here & we are sure you will find it useful.

The Committee on Budget and Finance has finally passed the projects regarding P2P lending platforms, driving licenses for identification & accounts opening for newly established companies. Enjoy reading about it below & now some important news from the Board of the Association.

Fintech Hub LT last week participated at Fintech Ecosystem Builders monthly meeting. Short snapshot from the meeting:

- the Ministry of Economy and Innovation is planning to dedicate some funds from the DNR pool on expanding the network of investors (EdTech, GameTech, FinTech)

- Vilnius University is creating VU Fintech Lab

- Invest Lithuania is targeting USA market

The minutes of the meeting are not very detailed but can be found here. We will update you on the DNR funds & other important parts once we get some information.

Close cooperation with the Bank of Lithuania and other relevant state institutions is essential to us. The main goal of the Board for this month is to arrange a meeting with the Bank of Lithuania and discuss the following topics.

1. Did the Bank of Lithuania changed its Supervision and Development Strategy of Fintechs? The position of the Bank of Lithuania regarding Fintechs is not completely clear. The regulator is tightening supervisory requirements, often imposes penalties. It has a significant impact on our activities: correspondent banks refuse to work with Lithuanian Fintech companies (de-risking), which limits the profitability and ability to attract financing, etc. 

2. Risk management. The Fintech Hub LT Association wants to contribute to Fintechs risk management. The Association has initiated the development of a Customer Data Sharing Infrastructure to assist members of the Association in managing risks related to money laundering and terrorist financing.

Questions to BoL: How can the Fintech Hub LT association/market help with risk management? How can we contribute to the activities of the Centre of Excellence in AML (AML Center)?

3. Strengthening the protection of customers' funds of e-money institutions, and extension of options (funds insurance, protection of funds at the Bank of Lithuania in other currencies).

4. Extension of access to the infrastructure for financial market participants (SWIFT, TARGET2, FPS, BACS, other currencies)

As mentioned last week, our association is taking an active role in the Payments Council led by the Bank of Lithuania & Ministry of Finance and provided 4 payment-related issues/topics for the next year. ALL proposed topics will be reviewed on the 3rd of December by the members of the Payments Council. Additionally, this year achievements of some working groups will be presented there too. You can find some interesting statistics/information in their presentations:

1. The Ministry of Finance will present the developing tools to encourage an open ecosystem for non-cash payments in educational institutions.

2. The Bank of Lithuania will tell about the progress in implementing the Open Banking recommendations.

3. The Bank of Lithuania will brief on the progress of implementation of the Instant payments recommendations.

Find an agenda for the meeting here. 

A Committee on Budget and Finance with a new lead Mykolas Majauskas has approved important projects on the law changes:

1. The Law on Consumer Credit. Legal entities will be allowed to invest through P2P lending platforms. 

2. Amendment to the Law on Companies. Newly established companies will be allowed to open accounts not only at banks but also at electronic money institutions. 

3. Amendments to the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing. Driving licenses will be seen as an appropriate document for customer identification. It is an achievement for us as these changes were initiated by our association!

These changes are significant to our members and would make a positive impact on their business. Let us hope that the Members of the Parliament will approve it. We will update you as soon as we get more information on this. 

Following the assessment and proposal of the Bank of Lithuania, the European Central Bank (ECB) granted Crius LT, UAB a specialised bank licence.

The investor behind Crius LT, UAB is Igor Rintel, an entrepreneur from Slovakia. Mr Rintel also controls Trust Pay, a.s. – a licensed payment institution specialising in e-commerce payments. More. 

Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Libra has been rebranded “Diem” in a renewed effort to gain regulatory approval by stressing the project’s independence. The original name was tied to an early iteration of the project that received a difficult reception from regulators.

European Payments Council this week published the first version of the SEPA Request-To-Pay (RTP) scheme rulebook. The SRTP scheme covers the set of operating rules and technical elements (including messages) that allow a Payee to request the initiation of a payment from a Payer in a wide range of physical or online use cases. Find out more here.