The Ministry of Finance (Latvia) set out plans to create a single licensing and supervisory system for non-bank consumer lenders, centred on moving core responsibilities to the Bank of Latvia, and discussed the approach with FinTech industry representatives. Latvia currently splits licensing, supervision and control across three bodies, the Bank of Latvia, the Consumer Rights Protection Centre and the State Revenue Service, which the ministry argues creates fragmentation, duplicated checks and legal uncertainty, including overlapping anti-money laundering supervision. The ministry’s proposal would transfer consumer lender licensing and supervision from the Consumer Rights Protection Centre to the Bank of Latvia, alongside consumer rights and interests protection for retail financial services recipients, with the unified model intended to support consistent oversight of pricing and total credit cost transparency, contract fairness, responsible lending, and AML and customer due diligence requirements. Discussions also covered creditworthiness and credit risk assessment, access to credit information, sanctions risk management, product rollout processes, cyber and information technology risk requirements, advertising and unfair commercial practices supervision, supervisory transparency, data use and regulatory culture, with industry participants pointing to the Bank of Lithuania’s risk-based supervisory approach as a reference point. An informational report on the supervisory system change is due to be considered by the Cabinet of Ministers on 24 February 2026. If approved, draft legislation would be submitted to the Cabinet of Ministers by 30 May 2026, with the first reading in the Saeima before the summer session and the second reading in September, and the change in supervisory authority planned from 1 January 2027, subject to a transition period after the legislation enters into force.

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