Finovate Global Lithuania: The Rise of Regtech in One of the Europe’s Most Dynamic Fintech Hubs
Lithuania is one of those countries that punches above its weight in terms of fintech innovation. With a population of less than three million, the country boasts more than 260 fintech companies. It is the largest fintech hub in the EU when it comes to licensed companies. These fintechs, numbering nearly 150, represent the majority of fintechs in the country and are licensed e-money institutions, payment institutions, or specialized banks.
Some of the more widely known Lithuanian fintechs include account-to-account infrastructure company kevin and e-money institution Paysera. Revolut Bank is licensed and regulated by the Bank of Lithuania, the country’s central bank.
Given the country’s strength as a fintech hub, it is no surprise that Lithuania holds its own on the regtech front as well. Two of the country’s more active regtechs are AMLYZE, an automated transaction monitoring and risk assessment solution provider that raised $1 million in funding back in May, and identity verification and fraud prevention company iDenfy. Both companies made significant partnership announcements in recent days.
Lithuanian identity verification and fraud prevention company iDenfy will help ECNG Digital, a virtual currency exchange and payment services firm, enhance its onboarding process. The partnership will enable ECNG Digital to deploy a variety of customized identity verification procedures via a KYC solution that combines high accuracy and an optimized user experience. These procedures range from validating government-issued identification documents to live selfie detection to cross-referencing databases. Additionally, iDenfy’s in-house KYC specialists will provide real-time verifications to enhance the accuracy of the technology.
“In the realm of virtual currency exchange and payment services, the real challenge lies in balancing fraud prevention with swift identity verification,” iDenfy CEO Domantas Ciulde said. “Our mission is to guide ECNG Digital on this path, ensuring precision while accelerating understanding.”
ECNG Digital is not the only company turning to iDenfy for identity verification. German online marketplace Quoka and iDenfy also have announced a partnership this week. iDenfy’s verification technology will help Quoka manage its sizable volume of ID verifications, leveraging both biometrics and document recognition.
Headquartered in Kaunas, Lithuania, iDenfy was founded in 2017.
Lithuanian credit union group KREDA has selected Lithuanian regtech AMLYZ as its compliance software partner. The organization is one of the largest credit union organizations in the country and has 14 member institutions. KREDA will leverage AMLYZE’s transaction monitoring technology as part of a modernization of its compliance standards. The technology will also help KREDA with customer risk assessment, case management, and sanctions screening.
AMLYZE CEO and co-founder Gabrielius Bilkštys said the partnership represented the company’s “commitment to helping organizations like KREDA navigate the complex current regulatory landscape, detect financial crime, and ensure the highest standards of compliance.” Founded in 2018, KREDA has $528 million (€0.5 billion) in assets under management.
AMLYZE also recently announced that it was working with Estonian core banking provider Tuum. The two firms have forged a strategic partnership that will give banks and other financial institutions access to “out-of-the-box” compliance that is integrated into Tuum’s core banking, payments, and card modules. Tuum VP of Global Strategic Partnerships Jean Souto said that the collaboration would allow “banks and financial institutions to free themselves from the burden of legacy applications so they can respond quickly to market challenges and new opportunities whilst ensuring compliance with increasingly evolving stringent regulations.”
Founded in 2019, AMLYZE is headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania.
Here is our look at fintech innovation around the world.
Latin America and the Caribbean
- Mexican neobank Albo secured $40 million in Series C funding.
- Issuer-processor Paymentology teamed up with Colombia-based expense management firm Tuily to bring Apple Pay to the company’s SME customers.
- Uruguay-based digital payments company dLocal announced a pause in its expansion plans.
Asia-Pacific
- Cross-border payments infrastructure network Thunes expanded its Acceptance network to five markets in southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.
- Currencycloud announced that it has more than tripled its Chinese customer growth rate across the Asia-Pacific since opening its regional headquarters in 2021.
- Wealth app Sharesies teamed up with New Zealand-based Maori fintech starup BlinkPay.
Sub-Saharan Africa
- South Africa-based Ukheshe partnered with Xion Global to enable crypto payments on its Scan to Pay app.
- Nigerian wealth management platform Risevest has acquired digital trading platform Chaka.
- Revio, a fintech headquartered in South Africa that specializes in payment orchestration, secured $5.2 million in seed funding.
Central and Eastern Europe
Middle East and Northern Africa
- U.K.-based TangoPay partnered with Israel-based transaction monitoring specialist ThetaRay
- Israeli-fintech Earnix introduced new Chief Technology Officer Erez Barak.
- UAE’s Neopay announced a partnership with Alipay+.
