In this episode of the Connector Podcast, host Koen Vanderhooydonk interviews Marien, head of the Financial Technology Supervision Department at the Central Bank of Latvia. The conversation, recorded during Nordic FinTech Week, focuses on Latvia’s growing fintech ecosystem. Marien explains the second‑year Latvia FinTech Forum scheduled for 10 October in Riga, highlighting its on‑site format, panel discussions with international experts, and a new fintech competition. He outlines the regulatory tools Latvia offers: an Innovation Hub, two regulatory sandboxes (one for fintech, one for issuers), and a streamlined licensing process. The discussion moves to the country’s startup‑friendly environment, covering tax benefits for hiring, a startup‑visa program, easy air connectivity, high‑speed internet, and a talent pool from competitive universities. Marien also mentions the recently adopted national fintech strategy, signalling government priority. Listeners are directed to fintechforum2023.com for the event and fintechlatvia.eu for broader fintech guidance, with free access to the Innovation Hub and sandbox applications. The interview conveys Latvia’s strategic positioning as an attractive, low‑risk, and supportive hub for fintech innovators.
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Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen van der Hooijdonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another fintech podcast episode, and today I'm here with Marien. Marien, who are you?
Hello, nice to see you. I'm from the Central Bank of Latvia. I'm head of Financial Technology Supervision Department, and I'm very, very excited to be here.
But where are we?
We are in Nordic FinTech Week. It is a very big event that joins a lot of FinTech professionals and governmental institutions, policymakers in one room. I'm very excited on discussions, the outcomes, the roundtable discussions, Just creates real cool value for everyone.
Oh, I'm happy to hear that. Well, it was actually the same for me. I also had a great time, and I'm still happy there's still half day to go. So talking about the FinTech Festival, you're from Latvia, and can you reveal us? Because you guys are also doing something, organizing something too, right?
Right, right, absolutely. So it is second year when Central Bank with Latvian Investment Development Agency organizing. Latvia Fintech Forum. So why we are doing that and what we want to achieve? We want to bring this idea that we want to see more innovative environment in the financial market in Latvia. And we see there is still a very good room for growth of companies. And we want to see more companies and players on the financial market. During the last 5 years, we were very active in rebuilding all our, I would say, financial supervision. And we created perfect supervision environment and regulatory environment to accept newcomers. We did a lot, and in AML area, we did a lot in risk approach implementations. And what we see, we see that there is a lot of companies who can come and create specific value for the customers, bring this value into the market. We see that the innovations are growing, different types of innovations, and the users are the winners.
And when is the date? When should we all come to Riga?
Yes, about the content, actually, October 10th is—
Mark our dates, mark our agendas.
Mark your calendar, October 10th. This is a forum that will be only on-site event. There will be no translation this time. We see that people are really hungry for personal meetings. Yeah, that was a major reason. And the main idea of the forum is that we will simultaneously have the forum with the panel discussions with the excellence Experts across across the world, I would say because we put a lot of to bring international speaker and simultaneously there also will be fintech factor competition.
So wow, tell us a bit more about the competition. That's new.
It's new. It's a new new initiative. We are open the call for companies who have kind of innovative idea and they will be actually going into competition when the judges will be reviewing the innovative ideas and pitches. of the participants. And of course, we will see who will be the winner. There are several companies that have already applied for the competition.
And can companies still apply today?
Actually, today we are already closed the day.
Too late.
Yeah, it's too late. But still, next time you can bring yourself to the 10th of October to the Fantasdrum in Riga and to see what is happening because we have professional judges. We have also our—
I thought you would be the judge.
I will not be the judge because we want to be very independent and we grant those, those, those makes a lot of sense to the professionals who are making those judgments every day and who know perfectly.
So you have probably an investor, a fintech guru, and a banker. Am I right? I'm just guessing.
A facilitator.
A facilitator.
We are facilitator, but we will able.
I mean in the jury. In the jury, you probably.
Yes, exactly. In jury, we have investor. We have everything that you told. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nice, nice, nice. And well, for a lot of people, well, we're here now in the Nordics. Myself, I come from the Benelux. So we always look like there's a lot happening in your region. Can you explain a little bit more about why fintech should come there and what is its what makes you so special?
Actually, Latvia is a perfect place for newcomers, for new startups. You know, the theory of 6 handshakes when you can go to anyone in the world. So, in Latvia it takes 1 handshake.
That's a nice one.
It's really nice. Another thing, we are very cold-minded. We are not making any, like, you know, discounts or any, let's say, tolerance in the risk management, but we have a very open heart. So that is our strategy also as a regulator. So we are very cold-minded, but we have open heart. It takes just a couple of days to get the meeting with the regulatory.
Wow, that's nice.
It's usually within a week you will be getting the meeting, and that is one of the also the benefits that we see.
So you're very welcoming then?
Exactly. We have created a lot of tools that helps new fintech companies or any financial other companies from another financial sector like insurance or banking or whatever to use different kind of guidelines how to get the license what are those process how it looks like we have launch innovation hub we have regulatory sandbox by the way we have two sandboxes we have regulatory sandbox and another more we also are developing capital markets and we created the sandbox for issuers So, if you are going to IPOs—
But that's very specific.
Exactly. Yeah. If you are going to IPOs, usually it's very time-consuming, energy-consuming. It's not so easy for the company who yesterday have been like average enough SMEs and now they are going to the next step. You also need guidelines in this area.
Absolutely.
In average in Latvia, there are very many startups programs, supporting programs. For example, if you hire employee and you are a startup company, you have tax benefits on that. So, if you are like paying a minimum salary, you are paying the social tax only from this minimal salary. But if you're paying like double or 3 times, you still will be paying social tax from this minimal salary.
Wow, that's interesting. And for not only the first one, but for many employees?
Yes, exactly. It is for several employees. Then we have those startup visa program. You can bring yourself, you can bring your family. If you are, for example, from the third country and you can, you want to establish the office here. If you are establishing an office in Riga, it's a fantastic connection with our national air company. You can actually quickly get—
Fly in, fly out.
Yeah, I mean, flights during— in European and Scandinavian countries is like several days, several times a day. So it is very easy to connect. It's a perfect— we have the fastest internet. We really have cool internet, and I can compare it with what we have here today.
Be careful.
But it works perfectly. We have another infrastructure. I think those 4 main considerations. The tax system is welcoming, the regulation is fully completed, the infrastructure and the city benefits are— and for example, we also have stock options for employees.
Oh yeah.
And it's also for the startup, especially when you're doing your first stage and you have those economy policy in each and every— you have a very limited budget. It is also very good options how to use and how to attract employee, how to retain employee.
Absolutely.
And then we have access to talents because our universities are Competitive enough to to work and to produce, let's say, good IT specialists and finance specialists in finance. I think those are two competences we are strong enough. And another thing is access to funding by developing our capital markets. And all those four pillars are the main pillars when all the financial infrastructure is built on.
Nice, nice.
Makes special. And by the way, we also this year adapted national fintech strategy. It was the first time when this document have been appeared. It means that there is a priority also for the government.
Oh, that sounds really welcoming. So where can people find more information about the event itself? Is there a website or where can they go to?
Right, there is a very specific website, fintechforum2023.com.
All right.
But anyway, you can also—
Quickly do a Google search, right?
Right, you can do that. But you can also go— by the way, we have created a very specific website for fintechs.
All right.
Yes, as a government institution, we have created an additional website for the fintechs in a much more easy and flexible design where the fintechs can find all the interesting information about the trends, about the technologies, about the guidelines for money institutions, for crowdfunding services, for crypto services. And this fintechlatvia.eu.
Okay, thank you. That would be very interesting for the startups that are listening or anyone else interested to learn more.
Yeah, and you can easily apply into Consultation Innovation Hub or Latvian Sandbox. It's free of charge.
All right, well, Marien, thank you very much for joining me in this podcast, and thanks for sharing all the insights about Latvia. You made me very curious, and I'm going, so I'm very interested to go and visit Riga. for the first time. So thank you very much. Thank you also to the listeners and stay tuned for more innovation.
Bye-bye.
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