Evolving lending into banking

UAB "GF Bankas" is a well established lender in Lithuania and has a loan portfolio of more than 70 million euros. A market leader known for its focus on customer needs and excellent service, UAB "GF Bankas" decided to evolve into banking, and became a bank under the new name of „General Financing bankas“ now adding deposits to its portfolio.

The idea began three years ago in 2017, when Lithuania created conditions for specialised banks. These conditions establish a favourable environment for Lithuanian and foreign start-ups seeking to provide various financial services in the European Economic Area.

Building a portfolio of specialised banking services allows UAB "GF Bankas" to offer their customers a wider range of services. As one of the first banks in Lithuania granted a specialised bank license, UAB "GF Bankas" is an innovator, contributing to a changing banking landscape in Lithuania and across Europe.

But transformation doesn’t happen overnight. In the early stages of the transition, UAB "GF Bankas" faced a number of challenges:

• navigating the labyrinths of Lithuanian and European legal acts,
• managing compliance throughout the organisation,
• building a future-ready tech stack to enable growth.

For a modern bank, the ecosystem is a critical success factor. It brings the key elements of digital banking – cloud, big data, and open APIs – together to build an excellent customer experience.

The main challenge in banking transformation is integrating legacy systems with the new digital ecosystem. To address this, UAB "GF Bankas" selected Mambu’s cloud-native banking platform and was able to progressively change their systems by building a best-for-purpose agile and scalable architecture. The quick and flexible assembly of independent systems on a cloud platform gave them the ability to build intuitive, responsive features that can be easily and continuously updated.

For example, in order to launch banking activity, it was critical to connect to CENTROlink, the payment system designed and managed by the Bank of Lithuania, that provides the gateway to the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA). Close cooperation between all three parties, Mambu, Inventi and UAB "GF Bankas", guaranteed that the usual complex process was rather straightforward and cost-effective.

Now that UAB "GF Bankas" has reached an important milestone in their transformation, they continue building for constant change and the evolving needs of their customers. In the next 2 to 3 years UAB "GF Bankas" aim to create the greatest possible added value for their customers and continue building new products and services to meet customer needs.