Slovakia Payment System License

The Eastern European state became a member of the EU in the mid-2000s, subsequently joining the Schengen Area and the Eurozone. Therefore, Slovakia complies with the General Norms of the European Union, including directives relating to the activities of payment systems operating in fiat and non-fiat (electronic) currencies. The country has a robust national legislative framework on the supervision of the financial services market, mediation, etc., but also takes into account the EU requirements.

The peculiarity of the state policy is the transparency and controllability of the sphere. Thus, in Slovakia, e-money and related transactions are often of considerable interest to resident and non-resident entrepreneurs. If they are establishing a payment intermediary organisation, they are subject to the EU directive 2007/64/EC and National Law No. 492/2009 – a service provider with or without a restriction on the scope of activities must be licensed.

Requirements for Licensees

The concept, issuers and operators of electronic means are clearly defined in the legislation. Slovakia considers all legal entities with an official address in the territory of the republic and carrying out operations related to such areas as:

• issue of electronic funds;
• provision of payment instruments and closely-related services involving e-money;
• maintenance and support of payment and exchange services to be eligible to operate as e-money institutions.

If the organisation provides services not involving the issuance of e-money, it is required to adhere to the monthly transaction limit of three million euros. This limit is calculated as the yearly average by dividing the total by 12, taking into account the remarks of the main financial regulator — the Slovak National Bank. The Slovak National Bank is the one that accepts applications for licenses and grants permits one month after data processing (upon due and proper filing of all the necessary paperwork). The document is valid for an unlimited period, but may be withdrawn upon violation or non-fulfilment of the Slovak National Bank requirements .

Licensing Procedures

Licensing is carried out as per the payment services law. This law states that legal entities established as commercial organisations and wishing to create a payment structure have the right to apply. They are required to pay a fee of 3.5 thousand euros for the reception and processing of the application, as well as to submit a statement. This statement should specify the company name and list the names of all its officials, the type of services for which the permit is issued, auditor information, whether a separate a contract was concluded with the auditor, etc.

The statement should be accompanied by a package of documents. The documents include:

• extract of the legal entity from the commercial register, memorandum and articles of association;
• proof of payment of capital (at least 20 thousand euros, depending on the type of activity), the legality of its sources and the transparency of origin of the founders' shares;
• professional biographies of the participants confirming a sufficient level of competence;
• a draft of the company's organisational structure, internal regulatory norms of internal audit and control, risk management (to comply with European requirements for AML);
• business plan for the first three years and a detailed scheme of participation of the legal entity in the payment system operations;
• a draft of the pricing rules, rules for the preparation of transactions, their implementation, etc.

Prifinance Support

If you are interested in doing business in Slovakia, you deal in e-money, you wish to create a payment system legally and quickly, then Prifinance is ready to help you all the way. Our consulting company has experts that will develop an optimal scheme of actions, take on organisational procedures and formalities, and so on. We will help with registration, licensing and related operations and make sure that you spend the minimum amount of time and effort.