Welcome Etsy Payments Ireland Limited to the regulated fintech ecosytem in Ireland!  Its authorisation brings the pool of regulated fintech in Ireland to 67, comprised of:

• 26 authorised electronic money institutions
• 21 payments institutions,
• 4 standalone open banking firms
• 11 virtual asset services providers and
• 5 crowdfunding services providers. 

We are pretty sure that these numbers will continue to grow in 2024.

Etsy Payments Ireland was authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland on Tuesday 20 February 2024 as a payments institution.  It is the first payments institutions to be authorised in Ireland in 2024 and the first such firm authorised since early September 2024 when Freemarketfx Ireland Limited became authorised.  Earlier this month an electronic money institution received authorisation.

Etsy Payments Ireland has been authorised to provide payment service #5, which is "Issuing of payment instruments and/or acquiring of payment transactions".  The company was incorporated back on 14 June 2019 and has been active since that date.  According to CRO records for Etsy Payments Ireland as at year end 31 December 2022 the company had a turnover of €609K, cash in the bank of €2.5mn and Net Assets of €2.64mn. Not often one sees such figures at a company which is going through authorisation.

​Gary French announced his appointment to the role of Chief Executive Officer at Etsy Payments Ireland in a Linkedin post yesterday. Gary is also on the board of the company.  Before joining the Etsy brand, Gary worked at Google  / Google Payment Ireland Limited and Elavon.

2024 is off to a slow start for those expecting a slew of authorisations and registrations by the Central Bank of Ireland of electronic money institutions, payments institutions and virtual asset services providers.

2023 saw just 5 electronic money firms become authorised in Ireland and just 1 payments institution became authorised.  Given that one of the emoney firms authorised was an upgrade from a payments institution authorisation, Ireland only welcomed 4 new companies to its emoney / payments sector. There was better news for the local crypto industry with 7 virtual asset service providers becoming registered in 2023 out of a pool of 11 such firms. These virtual asset firms and others that may get registered in 2024 can look forward to a deeper and more intense authorisation process should they choose Ireland to be their European home under the Markets in Crypto Asset Regulation. Fingers crossed.  And note MiCAReady.com is here to help those firms and other plan for their pan-European Union journey.

​Thus far in 2024 just one of these types of companies has received the Central Bank's imprimatur, that being Navro Payments Europe Limited, formerly known as Paytrix Ireland Limited.  According to publicly available Central Bank records, Navro Payments Europe was authorised as an electronic money institution on Friday 2 February 2024 (and only appearing on the Central Bank's register run of 6 February). In addition to emoney services, Navro Payments Europe was also authorised to provide payment service #3c (i.e.  Execution of credit transfers, including standing orders.)

Last August it was announced that fintech industry pioneer Joe Redmond had joined the Paytrix team as the new CEO for Ireland to drive its compliance and expansion plans across Europe. Other heavy hitters involved with Navro Payments Europe includes Peter Rowan, who joined the board of directors on 28 September 2022 and is listed on his linkedin profile as General Manager in addition to his director role. Other board directors of the newly authorised Irish company are Paytrix founders Edward Harrison and Aran Brown.  

Navro Payments is 100% owned by Paytrix Holding Limited.  The company was rebranded Navro Payments according to Companies Registration Office records pursuant to section 32 of the Companies Act 2014.

​Ireland is now home to 26 authorised electronic money institutions, 21 payments institutions, 4 standalone open banking firms, 11 virtual asset services providers and 5 crowdfunding services providers.  Rumour has it that a few more firms will hit these registers in the coming days.  We'll wait and see. 

Looking back over the Period H1 2020 to H1 2023 - to co-ordinate with the Central Bank of Ireland’s own Regulatory Service Standards Performance Reports - there are some interesting observations. During that period, as shown in the image below, the regulator:

• received 171 applications
• completed 235 key information checks
• authorised 10 electronic money firms (one being an upgrade from payment institution authorisation [InterPay Limited] and another which subsequently withdrew its authorisation in 2022).
• authorised /registered just 7 payments firms, including a large portion being standalone open banking firms (i.e. AISP and PISP)

The data in the first two bullet points comes the section within the reports headed Payment Firms (Payment Institutions, Electronic Money Institutions, Small Electronic Money Institutions & Money Transmission Businesses) & Bureaux de Change Authorisations.  Unfortunately the regulator's statistics for Bureaux de Change do not show the date a firm was authorised/registered.  Further, in the absence of more detailed data, it is possible (if not probable) that there is some double counting here.  

The data in the last two bullet points comes from the regulator's registers. 

Based on the numbers of firms authorised/registered versus applications received, one might have a few questions about the throughput of applications at the Central Bank.  However, there is no point speculating or over analysing the limited information available in the public domain.  What we need to do so is publication of substantial, independent and detailed information about the authorisation process and deeper and richer metrics. 

What is fair to say is that since since 2017, when Ireland had just two electronic money firms, that number has swelled 12 fold to the start of February 2024. Over the same period, the number of payments firms (authorised and registered) has jumped from 10 to 25 in total (21 authorised and 4 registered). More impressive is the rapid but seemingly controlled growth of quality digital asset firms totaling 11 from July 2022 to the end of last year.

We have added, with a very warm welcome, the following to the ‘Ireland’s Regulated Fintech Ecosystem (Payments & Crowdfunding)" Map Version 2:

1. Payoma Ireland Limited (authorised electronic money institution)
2. Bridge Peer Financial Limited trading as Property Bridges (authorised crowdfunding services provider)
3. Slua Ventures Ltd t/a Spark Crowdfunding (authorised crowdfunding services provider)

 
Payoma has also been added to our other regulated fintech map, Version 14, showcasing emoney and payments firms only.

Ireland is now home to 62 authorised or registered fintech across emoney, payments, open banking and crowdfunding.

​Payoma was authorised as an electronic money institution on 3 November 2023, and in addition to electronic money services is authorised to provide payment services 3a, 3b, 3c and 5. 

It is 100% owned by Payoma Limited in the UK which is authorised as an emoney firm by the Financial Conduct Authority. Payoma continues a trend of firms happy to go on the record about their positive experience of dealing with Ireland’s national competent authority, the Central Bank of Ireland saying in a statement “Our heartfelt gratitude extends to the entire team at the Central Bank of Ireland for their unwavering support and belief in the potential of our project. Their guidance has been invaluable, and it is with their assistance that we have realized this ambitious goal.”

Property Bridges and Spark Crowdfunding, both authorised by the cut-off date of 10 November 2023 join Seedrs Europe Limited as the only locally authorised crowdfunding service providers. 

Further Reading:

• Release of version 13 of the Regulated Fintech Emoney & Payments Map 

Sign-up to the Fintech Ireland Newsletter here to keep up to date with Irish fintech news, follows us on Twitter and follow the Fintech Ireland's Linkedin Page.  If you are first connections with Peter Oakes, you can also join the Fintech Ireland Group on Linkedin.

Not long after we released version 12 of Fintech Ireland's regulated fintech map comprising of authorised  electronic money and payments institutions and registered account information services providers (and as predicted) the Central Bank of Ireland authorised another emoney institution.  Thus we have released version 13.0 of the Map.

Kraken, a trading name of Payward Ireland Limited, was authorised as an electronic money institution on 25th September 2023 and may also provide payments services number 3c.  Many will know Kraken as a digital asset / crypto asset firm.  Kraken is also registered in Ireland under local law transposing the 5th AML Directive and it appears on Fintech Ireland's Map of Registered Virtual Asset Service Providers along with (as of today) another eight VASPs. 

Kraken is also one of one of five VASPs which also holds an electronic money authorisation - the other four being Coinbase, Gemini, Paysafe and NoFrixion.  Kraken's regulated Irish operations are owned by Payward Europe Limited, which in turn is own by Payward Inc.  

According to latest set of account available from the Companies Registration Office (CRO) for the year ending December 2021,  Payward Ireland Limited had a turnover of just €26,634 which was fully consumed by administrative expenses.  Given that it was not registered as a VASP until 11 April 2023, followed by its emoney authorisation on 25 September 2023, we will not get a clearer picture of the potential for its success in Ireland until say Quarter 4 2024 when its accounts for 2023 will be published on the CRO's website.

So what can Kraken do with its emoney authorisation?  Obviously it can issue and redeem electronic money and separately provide payment service 3c which is "Execution of payment transactions, including transfers of funds on a payment account with the user’s payment service provider or with another payment service provider with respect to execution of credit transfers, including standing orders.  

To date since the start of 2023, Ireland's Central Bank has authorised just four firms as either an electronic money institution (EMI) or a payments institutions (API) i.e. Kraken (Payward Ireland) (EMI), Freemarketfx Ireland (API), TransferMate (Interpay Limited) (EMI) and NoFrixion Limited (EMI). TransferMate was previously authorised as a payments institution from 2011-2023 before becoming an EMI in April 2023.  Thus effectively, Kraken, NoFrixion and Freemarketfx Ireland are the only new entities to become authorised in 2023 (3 authorisations in 9 months).    

Kraken was authorised more than 2.5 years after it was incorporated in Ireland on 23 February 2021. 

Our Peter Oakes last spoke with Charlie Taylor of the Business Post on the topic of regulatory authorisations on Sunday 20 August 2023.

• Peter Oakes, a former Central Bank enforcement director and founder of Fintech Ireland, said a firm setting up in Ireland needs to be aware that the upfront and post-authorisation costs in the first year will set them back about €1.5 million.
• “A considerable part of this outlay is required ahead of approval with no guarantee it will be given,” Oakes said.
• “No one wants to say this because everyone will say that by doing this you are not flying the green flag. Some consultants hide behind that because they might not be engaged [by clients] and risk losing other client work both pre and post authorisation in areas such as tax, IP, employment, commercial and corporate work. No-one should be surprised by this,” he added.

Ireland is now home to 48 legal entities which provide emoney services, payment services and standalone account information services.  There are 26 payments services firms in Ireland which includes 4 account information services providers and 23 emoney firms.  The records of four firms state that their authorisations were withdrawn.  The three that are no longer authorised to provide services in Ireland are Xpress Money Services Limited,  SWFS Ireland Limited and Modulr FS Europe Limited.  The 4th entity, noted above, Interpay Limited (TransferMate) switched from payments services only to an electronic money (plus payment services 3b, 3c, 5, 6) in April 2023.

Further Reading: See our post on the release of version 12 of this Map for more information. 

Sign-up to the Fintech Ireland Newsletter here to keep up to date with Irish fintech news, follows us on Twitter and follow the Fintech Ireland's Linkedin Page.  If you are first connections with Peter Oakes, you can also join the Fintech Ireland Group on Linkedin.

If you need assistance with an emoney or payments authorisation or an account information service provider registration application, check out Fintech Ireland and CompliReg's handy authorisation guides at https://fintechireland.com/fintech-authorisations.html.

As of 5 September 2023 we have produced an updated Fintech Ireland Map of authorised electronic money institutions, authorised payment institutions and registered account information services providers.

New to version 12 of the Map is Freemarketfx Ireland Limited, which was authorised on Monday 4 September 2022 to payment services 3c and 5.  These services allow Freemarkefx Ireland to provide:

• #3)  Execution of payment transactions, including transfers of funds on a payment account with the user’s payment service provider or with another payment service provider: (c) Execution of credit transfers, including standing orders; and
• #5) Issuing of payment instruments and/or acquiring of payment transactions. 

To date since the start of 2023, Ireland's Central Bank has authorised just three firms as either an electronic money institution (EMI) or a payments institutions (API) i.e. Freemarketfx Ireland (API), TransferMate (Interpay Limited) (EMI) and NoFrixion Limited (EMI). TransferMate was previously authorised as a payments institution from 2011-2023 before becoming an EMI in April 2023.  Thus effectively, NoFrixion and Freemarketfx Ireland are the only new entities to become authorised in 2023 (2 authorisations in 8 months).    

Freemarketfx Ireland Limited was authorised more than 2.5 years after it was incorporated in Ireland on 23 March 2021. According to Irish companies registration records, Freemarketfx Ireland is 100% owned by FreemarketFX Limited in the UK, which as per the UK FCA records, has been an Authorised Payment Institution since 16 May 2018.

Our Peter Oakes last spoke with Charlie Taylor of the Business Post on the topic of regulatory authorisations on Sunday 20 August 2023.

• Peter Oakes, a former Central Bank enforcement director and founder of Fintech Ireland, said a firm setting up in Ireland needs to be aware that the upfront and post-authorisation costs in the first year will set them back about €1.5 million.
• “A considerable part of this outlay is required ahead of approval with no guarantee it will be given,” Oakes said.
• “No one wants to say this because everyone will say that by doing this you are not flying the green flag. Some consultants hide behind that because they might not be engaged [by clients] and risk losing other client work both pre and post authorisation in areas such as tax, IP, employment, commercial and corporate work. No-one should be surprised by this,” he added.

Ireland is now home to 47 legal entities which provide either payment services or emoney services.  There are 26 payments services firms in Ireland which includes 4 account information services providers and 22 emoney firms.  The records of four firms state that their authorisations were withdrawn.  The three that are no longer authorised to provide services in Ireland are Xpress Money Services Limited,  SWFS Ireland Limited and Modulr FS Europe Limited.  The 4th entity, noted above, Interpay Limited (TransferMate) switched from payments services only to an electronic money (plus payment services 3b, 3c, 5, 6).


Further Reading: See our post on the release of version 11 of this Map for more information.