NBX has registered the subsidiary NBX Digital Asset Bank AS in Riga. The company was set up to apply for a banking licence in Latvia and holds no authorisation yet. Latvijas Banka assesses the application; the ECB takes the decision.
Caption: Stig Aleksander Kjos-Mathisen is chief executive of NBX and deputy chair of the supervisory board of the new subsidiary.
"Registering the company in Riga turns the plan we announced earlier into a legal entity and lets us take the licence application forward," says Kjos-Mathisen in a press release.
NBX is authorised today by Norway's financial supervisory authority, Finanstilsynet, as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA — the licence required to offer crypto services in the EU/EEA — covering seven services, and as an e-money institution. It now wants to add banking services to that offering, through a company of its own in Latvia.
NBX Digital Asset Bank AS was entered in the Latvian Commercial Register on 26 August under registration number 40203774388, with its registered office at Antonijas iela 21 in Riga.
The registration is one step in the application for authorisation as a specialised credit institution in Latvia. The company has not been granted a banking licence and will not conduct banking activity unless the authorisation is obtained.
NBX owns the subsidiary outright, holding all 250,000 shares. That amounts to 100 per cent of the share capital and the votes. The registered share capital of EUR 25,000 has been paid in full by NBX.
That sum is separate from the capital requirement set by the rules. Authorisation as a specialised credit institution requires initial capital of EUR 1 million under the current Latvian framework. NBX says it intends for now to retain full ownership and to provide the capital required as the authorisation process advances, and beyond that if the licence is granted and the business is built up. Material funding of the subsidiary will be reported through ordinary financial reporting.
Latvian companies have two governing bodies. The supervisory board, padome, is chaired by Nils Kristian Sundling, who also chairs the board of NBX. Kjos-Mathisen is deputy chair. Inna Romanenko, the group's chief anti-money-laundering officer, has been appointed to the management board, valde.
The appointments depend on the individuals meeting the fit-and-proper requirements authorities apply to management in financial firms. Further senior roles will be filled during the authorisation process, among them chief executive of the subsidiary.
NBX announced in March this year that it had begun work on applying for authorisation as a specialised credit institution in Latvia. The application is assessed by Latvia's central bank, Latvijas Banka, in cooperation with the European Central Bank, and it is the latter that adopts the decision on authorisation.
With the authorisation in place, the subsidiary would be able to offer banking services across the EEA, provided the necessary notifications are made to the authorities in the countries concerned. A banking licence would let the group offer deposits, payment accounts and lending alongside the digital-asset and payment services it already provides under its current authorisations.
The company is now working on the application itself, including the business plan, to be submitted to Latvijas Banka. Once the application has been confirmed complete, the assessment may take up to twelve months. NBX is planning for now on the basis that operations can start in the second half of 2027, subject to the authorisation being granted and the company being operationally ready. It stresses that there is no guarantee the authorisation will be granted, or that it will be granted within that timeframe.
"What comes next is the work of demonstrating to Latvijas Banka and the European Central Bank that the company meets the standards expected of a credit institution," says Kjos-Mathisen.
Sources: NBX
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