Fjord Bank
“Can a small Lithuanian specialised bank become the EU banking-licence and deposit-funding backbone for a UK BNPL unicorn (Zilch)?”
Founded2017
HQVilnius, Lithuania
IndustryBank / National
The story
Fjord Bank is a Lithuanian specialised bank founded in 2017 and launched operationally in 2020, focused on digital consumer lending (loans €600–€30,000) and deposit-taking. It expanded across the EU from 2022 and reached ~$120M in assets. Opera divested its stake in 2024, and in January 2026 UK BNPL unicorn Zilch agreed to acquire Fjord Bank, which will give Zilch a full EU banking licence and deposit-funded lending capability from its new Baltic base.
Product timeline
2017
Fjord Bank AB incorporated in Lithuania.· founding
2020
Launched operations in Lithuania as a specialised bank offering consumer lending and deposits.· banking
2022
Began European expansion (Estonia, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Netherlands).· expansion
2024
Opera divested its stake in Fjord Bank after four years of ownership.· acquisition
2026
Zilch announced agreement to acquire Fjord Bank; deal expected to close H2 2026.· acquisition
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Fjord Bank
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
2 layers disclosed in Fjord Bank’s embedded-finance stack
Banking / BaaS
Fjord Bank AB (in-house)
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
7 more providers across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.