Financial Services, Fintech, Good for Business, Latvia, Lithuania
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Friday, 29.03.2024, 13:26
Lithuania's PayRay plans entering Latvia
The company plans to hire at least four new people and also
has plans to expand to Latvia.
Mindaugas Stasionis, a deputy director PayRay, says the
company plans operations abroad, with Latvia as the first direction.
"Latvia is the first expansion zone as it’s a small and
concentrated economy. It has slightly more banks but small and medium
enterprises have little access to funding sources," Stasionis told
journalists in Vilnius on Thursday. "We will be entering Latvia with the
same lending services."
Renato La Fianza, managing director at PayRay, said
Lithuania was picked for good business conditions, a lowr unemployment level, a
small debt-to-GDP ratio, the euro and a stable political situation.
PayRay plans to provide online services of fixed-term
deposits for natural persons of the middle of 2020.
"It will be the only product we will offer to private
clients. We will do that online without opening any physical branches. We plan
to remain a small, niche organization focused on very clear activities,"
Stasionis said.
Paulius Joksas, chief operating officer at PayRay, says
factoring will remain the company key service. In his words, a new player's
entry into the very concentrated banking market in Lithuania will increase
competition.
Following the assessment and proposal of the Bank of
Lithuania, the European Central Bank granted PayRay a banking license in early
December, authorizing it to receive deposits and other repayable funds.
The company started its activities in Lithuania in June,
2018 as a private limited liability company (Vilnius Factoring Company),
providing factoring and other working capital financing services.
Its factoring portfolio is valued at 28 mln euros and its
services are used by 150 companies. The company incurred a loss of 941,500
euros last year.