Lithuania’s ambition to become a hub for financial technology fell short due to inadequate regulatory oversight, President Gitanas Nausėda said in an interview published Wednesday.
“Lithuania wanted to become a fintech paradise, but at the same time, we needed to think about what kind of supervisory system we were capable of offering,” Nausėda told 15min.lt. “It seems to me that the first goal overshadowed the second.”
His remarks come amid increasing scrutiny of the country‘s fintech sector, including a recent 15min.lt investigative report that raised questions about the handling of tens of millions of euros collected through the sale of cryptocurrency tokens by the company Bankera. Authorities are also continuing an investigation into Foxpay over alleged financial crimes and corruption.
“We failed to keep up – either in our capabilities or ultimately our regulatory framework – with the goal of attracting as many fintech companies to Lithuania as possible,” Nausėda said. “The problems we are seeing today essentially stem from decisions made years ago.
The president warned that while a country’s reputation can be lost quickly, restoring it is “extraordinarily difficult”.
According to Nausėda, Lithuania’s fintech push began around 2015–2016, but the regulatory environment was not adequately adapted to meet the sector’s unique demands.
He expressed hope that the current board of the Bank of Lithuania is giving the issue the attention it deserves.
“I hope the locomotive is now on the right tracks,” he said. “But we don’t need a Wild West scenario – we don’t need cowboy-like behaviour where one cheats another and, in the end, the country and its reputation suffer.”
On Monday, 15min.lt reported that tens of millions of euros raised during Bankera’s cryptocurrency token sale seven years ago were transferred to a bank in Vanuatu, a Pacific island nation. That bank was reportedly acquired by Bankera’s co-founders – Vytautas Karalevičius, Mantas Mockevičius and Justas Dobiliauskas.
A joint investigation by 15min.lt and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that funds were subsequently transferred to accounts owned by the co-founders and companies linked to them.
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