Major companies including IBM, Western Union, and Nasdaq have established a presence in Lithuania to capitalize on the strong business services sector. Lithuania ‘s comparative advantages in business services, ICT, and financial compliance, supports growth in the spinoff fintech sector, and the country has attracted increasing numbers of foreign fintech startups. The explosion in the number of fintech firms choosing Lithuania as their new hub can be attributed to the creation of a regulatory sandbox by the Bank of Lithuania and streamlined regulatory processes. Available to both existing authorized financial institutions and start-ups, the sandbox aims to provide a platform for firms to test innovation before bringing a product to market, ensuring no crucial errors when it reaches the hands of consumers. The number of jobs in the sector rose 48% in 2021 to almost 6,000. And according to projections, the number of fintech companies is expected to rise again in 2022 by 20 percent. Most of these new jobs would be focused on IT, software development, compliance and AML and business development.
Opportunities
In recent years Lithuania has proved to be very appealing as an EU destination for fintech development. For U.S. fintech companies considering expanding their business, Lithuania has the ability to deliver three critical factors: regulation, infrastructure, and talent.
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