Germany’s Commerzbank and Poland’s Pekao have informed Lithuanian and their countries’ supervisory authorities of their plans to operate in Lithuania, Gediminas Šimkus, board chairman of the Bank of Lithuania, said on Tuesday.
According to Šimkus, neither bank requires a license to operate in Lithuania as they already operate in the EU, and they only need a strategy to launch their operations in the country.
“They need to map out their strategy and start operation, because they have notified their supervisory authority and obtained the authorisation, and they have notified the Bank of Lithuania,” Šimkus told reporters.
“This is basically part of their market entry strategy – when, how, and to what extent. These are business decisions that the businesses themselves should comment on,” he added.
Šimkus pointed out that foreign banks can be established in Lithuania in various forms, and their intentions are serious.
It was reported last week that Commerzbank would announce its plans in Lithuania later this year.
The vz.lt business news website reported in mid-July about plans by The Bank of Taiwan, the largest Taiwanese bank, to set up a representative office in Lithuania. The news emerged after the island’s Financial Supervisory Commission approved the state-owned bank’s application to set up in Lithuania.
In January, Šimkus confirmed to the 15min news website that Pekao, one of the largest Polish banks, was also considering establishing a branch in Lithuania.
Earlier, PKO, Poland’s largest bank, also officially confirmed to BNS it was planning to start operations in Lithuania without establishing a branch here.
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