Between our 17 September and 31 October register snapshots, the EBA's register of payment and e-money institutions gained 28 newly authorised institutions (plus 19 small, exempted or excluded registrations), ESMA's MiCA register gained 40 crypto-asset service providers, and Canada's FINTRAC recorded 392 new money services business registrations and 17 cancellations. The biggest name in the batch, the European banks' euro-stablecoin issuer, was announced. Several of the most interesting entries were not.
The EU figures come from the EBA Payment Institutions Register (which consolidates the national regulators' registers) and ESMA's interim MiCA register. The Canadian figures come from the FINTRAC MSB registry. Our counting rule: an entity counts once, in the window in which it first appears on the register. "Authorised" means a full PSD_PI (payment institution) or PSD_EMI (e-money institution). Small or exempted institutions (PSD_EPI, PSD_EEMI), registrations under a PSD2 exclusion (PSD_EXC) and branch notifications are listed separately. Where we quote a date, it is the authorisation date the register itself records. It is not the date we noticed the entry, and some MiCA start dates lie in the future.
The headline: Qivalis, the banks' euro stablecoin, is now an e-money institution
Qivalis B.V. is on De Nederlandsche Bank's register as an authorised electronic money institution (DNB ref. R203793). Qivalis is the Amsterdam vehicle a group of European banks set up in September 2025 to issue a euro stablecoin. The consortium has since grown to 37 banks in 15 countries, including ING, BNP Paribas, BBVA and DZ Bank. DNB's approval was announced on 14 October. The register entry, which records 29 October as its authorisation date, reached our 31 October snapshot.
Why an e-money licence? Under MiCA, only a credit institution or an e-money institution may issue an e-money token, a stablecoin referencing a single official currency. For a bank-owned issuer the EMI licence is therefore the gate. What it does not do is launch anything. Qivalis still has to publish a MiCA white paper before the token can be offered. Reports say it will be distributed through banks, crypto exchanges and payment providers rather than to consumers directly.
For merchants and PSPs settling in euro stablecoins, this is a bank-consortium alternative to EURC, which Circle issues through its French e-money institution, and to Société Générale-FORGE's single-bank EURCV. It is not live yet. When it is, the register entry will be the thing to check first.
The same snapshot shows a second new Dutch EMI, Cosmolin B.V. (R202278, also dated 29 October). We found no announcement for it.
MiCA: 40 more crypto-asset service providers, and Greece arrives
Greece's first four entries. ESMA's register now lists BCash, Xenios Blockchain Group, Capital Wallet Greece and Piraeus Bank. The first three are supervised by the Hellenic Capital Market Commission. Piraeus is supervised by the Bank of Greece, and its recorded authorisation date is 7 August 2026. ESMA added the four on 24 September, as reported at the time. A systemic Greek bank now sits on the crypto-asset register beside three crypto-native firms. That is the same pattern the German banks set earlier this year.
Openbank Deutschland AG, a separate German entity. Santander's Openbank launched crypto trading in Germany in September 2025 under the MiCA authorisation it holds in Spain, passported into Germany. The new register entry is a different legal entity: Openbank Deutschland AG, a German stock corporation with its legal address in Mönchengladbach according to its GLEIF record (LEI 5299002CRNX7K6KOL397), with its own CASP authorisation dated 23 October 2026. We found no announcement. The register does not say what the entity is for. If Openbank moves its German crypto customers onto it, the counterparty named in their terms will change. Partners should watch for that.
26 more German cooperative banks. The Volksbanken, Raiffeisenbanken and VR banks keep arriving one by one, among them Münchner Bank, Sparda-Bank Baden-Württemberg, Volksbank Mittlerer Neckar, Wiesbadener Volksbank and Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Regensburg-Schwandorf. This continues the meinKrypto rollout we covered in September. Each cooperative needs its own entry before it can switch the service on, and several record start dates later in November. Two non-cooperative entities also appear: KSW Vermögensverwaltung AG (Nuremberg) and MEGE zweite GmbH (Vienna).
The rest:
- YouHodler Italy S.R.L.
- ICONOMI Europe, a Slovenian brokerage firm
- Noah LV SIA and Atrya Technologies, both in Latvia
- Prakma Markets (Spain)
- Regular Finance (France)
- VS Digital Europe (Malta), which comes up again below
EU/EEA: 28 authorised payment and e-money institutions new to the register
| Regulator | Entity | Type | National ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands — DNB | Qivalis B.V. | PSD_EMI | R203793 |
| Netherlands — DNB | Cosmolin B.V. | PSD_EMI | R202278 |
| France — ACPR | ILLIPAY | PSD_EMI | 922499033 |
| Ireland — CBI | ArmadilloPay Ireland Limited | PSD_EMI | C511576 |
| Italy — Banca d'Italia | REBELL S.p.A. | PSD_EMI | 14174720962 |
| Cyprus — CBC | CENTRAEX Ltd | PSD_EMI | 115.1.3.62 |
| France — ACPR | Flowdesk Europe | PSD_PI | 998951883 |
| France — ACPR | Paymium | PSD_PI | 533264800 |
| France — ACPR | Meria | PSD_PI | 829840735 |
| France — ACPR | Deskoin SAS | PSD_PI | 842129785 |
| France — ACPR | Alphacap Digital Assets | PSD_PI | 908913114 |
| France — ACPR | Finary | PSD_PI | — |
| France — ACPR | APLO | PSD_PI | 878929405 |
| France — ACPR | Finctek UE | PSD_PI | 930641055 |
| France — ACPR | Metal Gear | PSD_PI | 914975388 |
| France — ACPR | Qwarks | PSD_PI | 920795606 |
| France — ACPR | Rufiji Capital | PSD_PI | 948416813 |
| Spain — Banco de España | Criptan Trade, S.L. | PSD_PI | 6951 |
| Latvia — Latvijas Banka | Neverless SIA | PSD_PI | 40203638969 |
| Latvia — Latvijas Banka | Nexdesk, SIA | PSD_PI | 40203611803 |
| Latvia — Latvijas Banka | Velvian SIA | PSD_PI | 40203662566 |
| Malta — MFSA | VS Digital Europe Limited | PSD_PI | C112703 |
| Malta — MFSA | VFX Financial Europe Limited | PSD_PI | C115583 |
| Austria — FMA | Maksu GmbH | PSD_PI | 627717p |
| Czech Republic — ČNB | Invity Finance s.r.o. | PSD_PI | 22369775 |
| Netherlands — DNB | MoneyBird Third Party Provider B.V. | PSD_PI | R205766 |
| Romania — BNR | SelfPay S.A. | PSD_PI | 26067497 |
| Sweden — Finansinspektionen | Turtle Pay AB | PSD_PI | 559101-6786 |
The pattern: crypto firms taking payment licences
Eight of the 28 are crypto businesses:
- Flowdesk Europe, a market maker (announced)
- Paymium, France's oldest bitcoin exchange, already MiCA-authorised by the AMF in June
- Meria, Deskoin and Alphacap Digital Assets in France
- Criptan in Spain
- Neverless in Latvia
- VS Digital Europe in Malta, whose name also appears on ESMA's MiCA register this round (as "VS Digital Europe Ltd.") and appears to be the same Maltese group
The September round showed the same thing with Bybit and NorthCrypto.
This is no longer a trend to speculate about. It is a deadline that has passed. In Opinion EBA/Op/2025/08, the EBA told national regulators to require a PSD2 authorisation, from 2 March 2026, of crypto-asset service providers that provide payment services with e-money tokens, for example transferring or holding a client's euro stablecoins. A MiCA licence covers the crypto service. Once euro stablecoins move between customers, the PSD2 licence covers that leg. Firms either hold both or partner with a payment institution that does. The registers are now recording firms that chose to hold both.
Also notable
- CENTRAEX Ltd is an authorised EMI in Cyprus whose register name carries a condition: "the operations shall commence upon approval granted by the CBC". It is authorised, but not yet permitted to operate. Read the whole entry, not just the status column.
- MoneyBird Third Party Provider B.V. is a new Dutch payment institution whose name matches the Dutch bookkeeping-software company Moneybird. If it is the software company's own entity, it is another software vendor licensing the payments layer of its product rather than renting it.
- Finary is now on the register as an authorised payment institution. The name matches the French personal-finance app.
- REBELL S.p.A. (Italy) and ArmadilloPay Ireland are new EMIs. ArmadilloPay is already in our directory.
- Passporting: Airwallex's Dutch EMI registered a French branch, Airwallex France. That is a branch notification, not a new licence. Airwallex's profile is unchanged.
Small institutions and exclusions
Nineteen further entries are not authorisations in the full sense:
- Ten small payment institutions: eight in Poland, several of them local bill-payment offices, and two in Finland
- Two small e-money institutions: Strikkie Gifting in the Netherlands, and UAB "Bendras finansavimas" in Lithuania
- Seven PSD2-exclusion registrations: gift-card and limited-network schemes, among them the bookseller Thalia, fashioncheque, the Polish telecom Netia, Modivo Slovakia and Trans Link Systems, the operator of the Dutch OV-chipkaart transit card
None of these is a provider a merchant onboards with. They are on the register because a payment instrument with limited reach still has to be declared.
Canada: 392 new MSB registrations, 17 cancellations, and PayPal's new number
FINTRAC's registry recorded 392 new money services business registrations between our September and October snapshots. In the same period, 17 registrations ended:
- three were revoked
- fourteen ceased on the business's own notice
Another 52 changed status, most of them lapsing to Expired. Seven moved back to Registered. One of them is Clear Junction's Canadian entity, which lapsed in September and is registered again. Four of the seven had read Revoked in September. The register does not say whether those revocations were reversed or recorded in error.
PayPal Canada Co. has not left Canada. Its long-standing registration, M19890412, now reads Ceased. In the same snapshot, PayPal Canada Co. appears under a new registration number, N300001939, as Registered. That is a re-registration, not an exit. Anyone whose compliance file cites the old number should update it. We found the same ceased-and-re-registered pattern for one other business. About 7 of the 392 new registrations carry the name of a business already on the register; the rest are new names.
A registration is not a licence. FINTRAC registration is an anti-money-laundering obligation. It records that a business has told FINTRAC it provides money services, and it can be revoked. It is not a prudential authorisation like an EU payment-institution licence. Many of this round's new registrants are newly incorporated numbered companies or generically named "Pay" and "Finance" entities. Checking a Canadian MSB counterparty starts with the registration; it does not end there. Payment service providers in Canada also register with the Bank of Canada under the Retail Payment Activities Act. That is a separate list, which License Watch does not yet track.
Australia: mostly advisers
ASIC's register added 28 Australian Financial Services licences and dropped 11. The AFS licence covers a broad range of financial services, and almost all of this round's entries are financial advisers, wealth managers and insurance brokers. A few names, such as CanPay Financial Service and DLA FX, suggest payments or FX businesses. The register entry alone doesn't say which services they offer.
What we left out, and why
- MoonPay and Privalgo are not in this roundup. The register format we read changed between our two October snapshots, from EBA entity codes to the register's own prose labels. During that change, two Dutch e-money institutions flipped status in opposite directions: MoonPay Europe B.V. appeared and then read No longer on the register, while Privalgo B.V. did the reverse. Neither change is reported here until a stable register record confirms it. MoonPay's and Privalgo's directory profiles are unchanged.
- The UK is not covered. This roundup does not reproduce UK register changes. Check any UK firm on the FCA Financial Services Register directly.
What it means
For merchants choosing a provider: an authorisation is the floor, not the recommendation. The register tells you three things: whether the entity may lawfully provide the service, which category it sits in, and, as CENTRAEX shows, whether conditions still apply. A small institution operates under volume caps and lighter safeguarding rules than an authorised one. A PSD2-excluded scheme is not a payment provider at all.
For compliance and partnerships teams: check the entity, not the brand. This round included Openbank's new German entity beside its Spanish one, PayPal Canada under a new registration number, and Airwallex adding a French branch. Each is a case where the brand stayed the same and the legal counterparty or reference changed.
For anyone building on stablecoin rails: the 2 March deadline is visible in the registers. Crypto firms are adding PSD2 licences, banks are adding MiCA authorisations, and the banks' own euro token now has its issuing licence. If your settlement partner touches euro stablecoins, ask which entity holds the PSD2 permission for that leg, and look it up.
Why the register beats the announcement
Of the roughly ninety EU register entries above, we found prior announcements for a handful: Qivalis, Flowdesk and the Greek entrants among them. Most of the rest surfaced only in the registers. License Watch diffs the EBA, ESMA MiCA, FINTRAC and ASIC registers and publishes every grant, cancellation, revocation and status change with a citation link to the regulator's own record. If we can't cite it, we don't publish it.
Nine of this round's newly registered institutions already have profiles in our directory of 1,900+ payment providers, with the register entry attached as a licence fact. The License Map shows where every listed provider holds a licence.
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PaymentProviders.io is an informational service. Registry data belongs to the issuing regulators; status labels reflect the regulator's own wording. This article is not financial or legal advice, and PaymentProviders.io is not affiliated with any entity named.
