Polish bank and German bank have informed the Lithuanian supervisory authorities about their plans to operate in Lithuania – said Gediminas Šimkus, the chairman of the board of the Bank of Lithuania, on Tuesday. According to Šimkus, banks do not need a license to operate in Lithuania, as they are banks operating in the EU. The banks „notified their supervisor, obtained permission, and notified . Now they have to implement their own strategy and start operating” – said the chairman of the Bank of Lithuania board, adding that forms of operation can vary. „There is more than one form of operation. A bank can have its own company in Lithuania, it can have a branch or a department, it can have a representative office” – explained Šimkus. He emphasized that „business decisions and market entry should be commented on by the banks themselves”. . The Bank of Lithuania also repeatedly mentioned the possibility of new players entering the banking market. In mid-July this year, the business daily „Verslo žinios” reported about the plans of the Bank of Taiwan, the largest Taiwanese bank, to open a branch in Lithuania. The information was announced after the Financial Supervisory Commission on the island approved the bank’s application to establish a branch in Lithuania. In January this year, Šimkus confirmed in an interview with the portal 15min.lt unofficial information published earlier by the BNS agency, that . Bank Pekao SA, established in 1929, is one of the largest financial institutions in the Central and Eastern Europe region and the second largest universal bank in Poland with PLN 316 billion in assets. With the second largest branch network, . As the leading corporate bank in Poland, it serves every second corporation in the country. Since 1998, Bank Pekao has been listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Since 2017, Bank Pekao has been part of the PZU Capital Group. The largest shareholder of the bank with 20% of shares is , and the second one is the Polish Development Fund with 12.80%.
