By Zoran Temelkov June, 2022
Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider LHV UK successfully raised £30 million, which is nearly $38 million, through an oversubscribed rights issue. The company estimates that its offering was oversubscribed by 1.75 times.
The Estonia-headquartered LHV Group indicates that the funds will be used to capitalize its new UK bank which is in the process of obtaining a UK banking license.
LHV Group is labeled as being the largest domestic financial group, and it is listed on the NASDAQ Baltic. LHV UK performs its business operations through offices in London, Leeds, and Tallin.
The regulatory compliance and fulfillment of supervisory standards should be simplified with the LHV Group’s plan to divide the business activities, the LHV Bank with the LHV-UK which are the fintech-focused operations with headquarters in London. The separation of business units might take place once the UK Banking license is obtained.
LHV UK provides banking services to a couple of hundreds of fintech companies, some of which are Coinbase, Monese, Wise, Paysafe, etc. Some of the financial products and services offered include agency banking, virtual IBANs, multicurrency accounts, FX services, etc.
The LHV UK submitted its full banking license application in February 2022. The license should be approved by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulatory Authority (PRA).