Latvijas Banka issues a payment institution operating licence to SIA JOOL PAY

On 15 March, the Supervision Committee of Latvijas Banka decided to issue a payment institution operating licence to the limited liability company JOOL PAY with the right to provide money remittance services.

Money remittance is a payment service that enables receipt of money from a payer without opening neither a payer's nor a payee's payment account. The sole purpose of this payment service is to send a certain amount of money to the payee.

The payment service provided by SIA JOOL PAY will be an innovative service in the field of electronic payments in Latvia.

The companies intending to provide innovative payment services have to pay a reduced fee to Latvijas Banka for examining the application and for supervision. More comprehensive information on support to companies willing to receive a payment institution operating licence and advice on drawing up a quality application are available on the website https://fintechlatvia.eu/mi-eni-2/.

The provision of payment services is allowed to payment service providers, including commercial companies having received a payment institution operating licence from Latvijas Banka, or persons that do not need a licence to commence operation of a payment institution and they are registered with the Register of Institutions maintained by Latvijas Banka.

Registered payment institutions are entitled to provide payment services only in Latvia, offering a limited range of services and setting the limitations of the arithmetic mean of the executed payments.

More detailed information on the licensing process is available on Latvijas Banka's website, i.e. what an entrepreneur has to know and do to receive an authorisation for the provision of payment services, what documents have to be prepared and submitted to Latvijas Banka and what the deadlines for handling the application are. Experts of Latvijas Banka will advise entrepreneurs on the compliance of the desired business model with laws and regulations, the most appropriate possibility of licensing, etc.