Keel

180 people in one room, and a pretty direct question on the table: what does Latvia need to stay competitive for investment? Pawel Oltuszyk joined FICIL’s Members’ Meeting & Networking Lunch in Riga this week, bringing together foreign investors, policymakers, ambassadors and public-sector leaders. The conversation covered some big themes: economic growth, a more predictable business environment, talent, security and Latvia’s ability to keep attracting international investment. Pawel also had the opportunity to speak with Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs about recent developments in the Latvian fintech sector and the country’s growing ambition in the European fintech landscape. A special thank you to Ivars Zukovskis from Business Latvia I UK for the invitation, and to Foreign Investors' Council in Latvia and Latvijas Investīciju un attīstības aģentūra - LIAA for bringing such a strong group together. A good afternoon of conversations, new connections and plenty to continue. #FICIL #Fintech #Latvia #InvestmentInLatvia

London, Riyadh, Riga. Very different conversations over the last couple of weeks, but one idea keeps coming back: the best payment experience is increasingly the one you barely notice. At Visa Payments in Motion Baltics, Irina and Nina saw that from two very different sides. For Irina, business payments are increasingly disappearing into the workflow itself. Cards, expenses, accounting, payouts and cross-border money movement need to feel like one experience rather than a collection of separate systems. As she put it, the interesting question is no longer how to add payments. It is how to make them a natural part of the product. Juris Paegle described the Baltics as a “live production environment” for payment innovation, where new ideas can move into real products quickly. That certainly came through in the discussions around embedded B2B payments, virtual cards, working capital and cross-border. Nina came away with the other side of that story. Making things simpler for the customer does not make the governance behind them simpler. Stablecoins were a good example. The technology and potential use cases are moving quickly, but regulatory coverage, risk appetite and infrastructure still determine what can actually scale. The same applies to embedded B2B payments. As more of the experience sits within partner ecosystems, ownership of controls needs to be just as clear as ownership of the product. Put the two perspectives together and it is a useful reminder for us at Keel: the infrastructure should feel simple to the business using it. The work behind making it reliable, scalable and well governed is anything but. Thanks to Visa and Juris Paegle for bringing Payments in Motion to Riga, and to Sarah Fallström, Alex Dunn, Richard Campion and Grace Howie for some genuinely useful discussions across cross-border payments, embedded B2B, stablecoins and working capital. The team also had a really good conversation with Evita Kalmane-Pivkina from Visa, which was another valuable part of the afternoon. Plenty to take back into the work already happening at Keel. #PaymentsInMotion #B2BPayments #Fintech #EmbeddedFinance

Pawel and Neil are back from Riyadh, with plenty of follow-ups, new conversations to continue and a few Saudi favourites making the journey home with them too. Money20/20 Middle East gave us a real sense of the scale and momentum of Saudi Arabia’s fintech ecosystem. Across regulators, fintechs, banks and technology partners, the conversations were practical, commercial and centred on what is being built next, with a real focus on speed of execution. Pawel had a valuable conversation with representatives from Saudi Central Bank – SAMA and spent time with Fintech Saudi | فنتك السعودية, hearing more about the development of the financial sector and the opportunities being created across the Kingdom. It was also interesting to see how the ambitions of Vision 2030 are translating into activity across financial services, technology and fintech, with strong collaboration between the public and private sectors. Neil spent three days in back-to-back meetings with businesses working across payments, cards and cross-border money movement. There was a real appetite for partnership and for infrastructure that can support businesses as they grow across the region and internationally. And we couldn’t mention Riyadh without thanking everyone for the hospitality. Saudi coffee, dates and a few other local favourites kept the team going between meetings. Thank you to everyone who made time to meet Pawel and Neil, and to @Money20/20 Middle East, @Fintech Saudi and Tahaluf for bringing the ecosystem together in Riyadh. A lot of good conversations started there. We’re looking forward to continuing them. #Money2020MiddleEast #Fintech #Payments #SaudiArabia #Riyadh

Money20/20 Middle East is next on the Keel calendar. Pawel and Neil will be in Riyadh from this weekend, joining three days of conversations around payments, fintech growth and the next wave of financial infrastructure in the region. We’re looking forward to hearing firsthand what businesses, investors, and partners are focusing on. Pawel and Neil already have a full few days taking shape, but if you’re attending and would like to meet the team, there’s still time to get something in the diary. Looking forward to a great few days with @Money20/20 Middle East, Fintech Saudi | فنتك السعودية and Tahaluf, and to catching up with everyone heading to Riyadh. See you there. #Money2020MiddleEast #Fintech #Payments #Riyadh #Payments #baas #cards #cross-border #fx

Two days at Fintech Week London and one thing was clear: AI is no longer the interesting bit. Execution is. The conversation has moved on from “what can AI do?” to where it can actually make a difference. For Neil, that means building AI into products and operations in a useful way, not just adding it because everyone else is. The other big theme was infrastructure. Payments, accounts, cards, data, compliance, APIs. Get the foundations wrong and scaling gets harder. Get them right and they become an advantage. And with the Summit taking place at Fabric, it definitely wasn’t your usual conference setting. Thanks to Fintech Week London, Fintech Fringe and everyone Neil met over the two days. Next stop: Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh. #FintechWeekLondon #Fintech #AI #FintechInfrastructure

One thing kept coming up in yesterday’s discussion at Latvijas Banka: talent. Not just how Latvia attracts experienced specialists today, but how early we start showing young people the careers and industries they could be part of tomorrow. For Nina and Natalī, that part of the conversation felt particularly relevant. Natalī sees the shortage of specialist skills first-hand in fintech and compliance and her own route into the industry was not exactly planned. “I only discovered AML about ten years ago, and it happened completely by chance. I’d love to see young people introduced much earlier to the different professions out there, especially in areas where we already know specialist skills are needed.” Nina could relate from a different angle. She trained in transport engineering before eventually building her career in finance. A good reminder that education can open doors even when the career that follows looks very different from the one you originally imagined. One idea raised during the discussion particularly resonated with both of them: supporting growing businesses while also encouraging them to open their doors to students and schoolchildren, giving young people a closer look at different industries and helping develop the talent those businesses will need in the future. The wider discussion looked at where Latvia’s export value is really created and how the country can build more complex products, specialist expertise and higher-value services that compete internationally. One example Nina particularly liked was Lightspace Labs, a Latvian company developing its own advanced 3D and augmented reality technology and already working internationally. “It’s a great example that investing in innovation pays off. I hope Latvia’s innovation and IT services industry keeps growing. It’s close to home for us at Keel, because we’re also building at the intersection of technology and finance.” Riga is at the heart of Keel’s EU growth, where we are expanding the team and laying the foundations for the next stage of the business. What we are creating in Latvia is designed to reach far beyond it, and that growth depends just as much on developing the right people and skills as it does on technology and infrastructure. Thank you to Latvijas Banka and Olegs Krasnopjorovs, Uldis Hmieļevskis, Ilmars Osmanis and Raivis Bremšmits for sharing their perspectives, and to Ivo Butkevičs for guiding the discussion. It was great to hear both an honest view of the challenges and some brilliant examples of what Latvian businesses are already achieving internationally. For anyone who’d like to hear the full discussion, Latvijas Banka has also shared the recording on YouTube.https://https://lnkd.in/eyFhWm-h #Latvia #Fintech #Riga #Innovation

Andrew and Nick attended Africa Fintech Fest in London yesterday. One of the things that really stood out to Andrew was how stablecoins are becoming a genuine alternative payment rail, rather than just a crypto product. The ability to settle around the clock, including weekends and bank holidays, and move dollars into markets where traditional banking access is limited is where he sees the real value. “The future looks hybrid, with fiat and stablecoins sitting alongside each other.” As a business working across accounts, payments, FX and cards, we're interested in how new technologies and payment rails could change the way money moves across borders. Stablecoins are an area we're watching closely, particularly where they may help address some of the challenges around settlement, access and efficiency. It was good to hear how others are approaching these challenges, particularly in markets where access to financial infrastructure can still be a real barrier to growth. Nick also had the chance to catch up with Arun Johal from CLOWD9 | Certified B Corp™ and Henry Duckworth, CEO of Agridex. Great to see people working on different parts of the payments ecosystem coming together and sharing what they're building. Thanks to Quona Capital and Royal Park Partners for bringing together such an interesting group of founders, investors and fintech people. A good start to Fintech Week London. If you're around this week, we'd be happy to continue the conversation. #AfricaFintechFest #Fintech #CrossBorderPayments #Stablecoins

Fintech Week London is here, and we've got a busy few days ahead. Neil, Andrew, Nick and Pawel will be out and about across the week, starting with Africa Fintech Fest, hosted by Quona Capital & Royal Park Partners, then Visa Enabler, and finishing at the Fintech Week London Summit. We're looking forward to catching up with people we know, meeting some new faces and hearing what everyone is working on. There is plenty happening at Keel at the moment, so it will be good to get out of the usual day-to-day, share a little of what we're building and see where the conversations take us. If you're attending any of the events, do come and say hello. Whether you're looking at multi-currency accounts, card issuing, FX or cross-border payments, exploring new markets, or just fancy a coffee and a catch-up, we'd be happy to meet. Drop Neil, Andrew, Nick or Pawel a message and we'll find a time. See you in London! #FintechWeekLondon #Fintech #Payments #BaaS

DORA got a lot less theoretical this morning. Nina and Natalī joined Fintech Latvia Association’s DORA in Practice breakfast in Riga, with CWISE, AWS and Latvijas Banka bringing very different perspectives to the discussion. Janis Orlovs from CWISE shared what DORA-compliant financial infrastructure looks like in practice, Janne Laitinen from AWS looked at European digital sovereignty and Sovereign Cloud, and Marine Krasovska from Latvijas Banka spoke about implementation and the risks already starting to appear on the horizon.   Natalī has spent a lot of time looking at DORA from a legal and compliance perspective, so having the opportunity to ask practical questions directly to Latvijas Banka was particularly useful, especially as Keel EU progresses through the licensing process in Latvia. “It was important for me to understand what will actually be expected of us as a new player entering the Latvian market, rather than looking only at the regulation on paper. What also stood out was how approachable the regulator was. The conversation was open, practical and genuinely helpful.”   Nina picked up on something slightly different. For her, one of the biggest DORA challenges is not really the technology. It is making sure the right people have the competence, ownership is clear and different parts of the business actually work together. The Register of Information was a good example. It cuts across IT, legal, finance and risk, so it cannot simply sit with one person or one department. And while participation in the latest reporting cycle reached 100%, 46% of submitted data still needed correcting.   But Nina’s strongest point was probably this: “The register gives you a map of your dependencies, but it cannot tell you how quickly a critical service can really be replaced or how the business will perform during an actual incident. Documentation is not the same as resilience. You only really know that when the system is tested.” There was also plenty of discussion about what comes next, including agentic AI, concentration across cloud and AI infrastructure, technology sovereignty and post-quantum security. Definitely a few things for boards to start thinking about before they become the next regulatory deadline.   The conversations continued away from the presentations too, including a chance for Nina to catch up with Anastasija Asuiko from Swedbank. And Fintech Breakfast definitely lived up to both parts of its name. Special mention to B Bārs Restorāns for the pastries. They didn’t last long. 🥐   Thanks to Fintech Latvia Association, CWISE, AWS and Latvijas Banka for a genuinely useful morning. Plenty for the team to take back into the work we are doing at Keel.   #DORA #OperationalResilience #Fintech #KeelEU