Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I usually hear how people say, well, I want to choose between, let's say the Curacao license and the Maltese license or the license of Isle of Man. When you do not have this choice, it's not the way it's done. All four licenses are different.
[00:00:15] You should treat every license as a separate product because without being a product that it is, no license would survive. So I mean, they have the same teams to, to reply to all angry customers. They have compliance themes to follow whether or not you are applicable to get the license. And they have all the people to support and pay salaries. So they have to be profitable. There should be a value proposition in place for proper licenses. Proper license, in my opinion is the license that is accepted by main software providers, their main PSPs, payment system providers and banks. So if this license and if your business can do can do business with any of the software hardware providers, then you are fine. Then this license gives you all the benefits at some level. And it's just very important to understand the difference in value proposition between all of them. So four main licenses that you may consider for your business.
[00:01:21] The first one is the carousel, which is great for startups. So if you do not have millions of venture capital to start, if you can't wait for 12 months to get the license, if you want to start as soon as possible, then the Curacao license is the license that you set and forget. So they have a set and forget it approach. Where you get the license, you go through kyc, you go through some tension acquiring the license, you spend two months doing that and once you have the license you do not have a lot of things to.
[00:01:56] So you will be responsible in front of the commission or in case of Curacao, in front of master licensors and you will be responsible in front of your clients and master licensors will communicate with you in case if they have any issues and they receive any complaints from your clients, or if you do your job badly, not good, not the way the master providers want you to do the job, you do something that is not allowed. So in that case they will get back to you as well. But otherwise there is not much to do, right? So the Curacao license is great for startups. If you do not plan to run your business in the us, Netherlands, France, Dutch, Caribbean, then go ahead for the Curacao license as it's fast to get, it's not that expensive as other licenses and it gives you all the benefits. You can connect PSPs, banks, software providers, you are fine to go right so the second license is the Maltese license. So people ask me like okay, which one should I do? Carousel 1 or the Maltese one?
[00:03:08] So here's the thing. So if you have 100,000 to invest in the license, and that's roughly speaking, you will need much more because of the working capital and other things.
[00:03:21] So if you are fine going through a year of waiting period where you. Well, if you're fine waiting for a year for the license and you have a proper team in place, because the license will ask whether you have a team, they will evaluate you, then the Maltese license is probably an okay choice for you. But that's not why Maltese license is there in the first place.
[00:03:51] So Malta is the part of European Union, so it gives you all the benefits of the eu. You get an access to broader amount of software providers, broader amount of payment system providers.
[00:04:07] Basically 100% of all businesses out there will be fine working with you as you will have this Maltese license. So when it comes down to Malta, you can actually structure your business where you have Maltese company and then you have all local licenses on European market, so you can have a Belgian license, the Italian license, all other licenses beneath that Maltese company. So you do not have to go to any country out there, to every country to incorporate a separate entity there and then acquire the license. You can do this in one country, that is Malta and you can go through all the verification, through all the kyc, just because all European Union states have somehow similar terms, somehow similar rules, you will give yourself really, you know, a good start acquiring other local licenses and as well as it will be much cheaper, right? As you do not have to support every corporate structure currently.
[00:05:20] So the third license that probably worth discussing. Oh, of course with Malta, I didn't, I didn't finish with Malta. So if you want to get your investors at some point, if you want to go liquid through ipo, then the Malta is your choice.
[00:05:38] So normally the way that the journey of any startup works is that they acquire the Tier 2 license, such as Curacao license or the Kanawaki license, and then as they grow, they build the cash flow and then they get to the point where they look at the Maltese license and they start working on the Maltese license because currently they have time and they have this cash flow to wait for 12 months before they get this Maltese license. Kenwaukee is the master license compared to the Curacao license. So it's more expensive than the Curacao license, but it's not as expensive as the license of Malta or Isle of Men.
[00:06:21] So many businesses they consider Kanawaki because they want to have this benefit of having the master license where your south is technically sub licensed also with Kanawaki. What is great is that they do not have any corporate structure in place. So this is the only jurisdiction where you can choose where you want to run your business. You want your company registered in Cyprus, very cool. You can have it provide information, your beneficial owners, make sure that it's transparent and you can get your Kannawa key license registered on that Cypriotic company. Right? So this license is well accepted and well treated by all major software providers, banks, PSPs. So you will not have any issues with it.
[00:07:07] Now the third, the final license is the license of Vial of Men.
[00:07:13] So the price from the price point is just as the same as the Maltese license. You can compare it, but there is a big difference. Why would it exist? It's outside of European Union, so it's just next to the UK and it gives you a benefit which is huge. You can acquire it pretty fast. So with Maltese you would have to wait 30 to 50 weeks with the Isle of Man as pretty fast procedure, three, four months and you can have it, right?
[00:07:42] So as it's outside of you, you lose the benefit, the one that Maltese license provide you with that umbrella and the structure below.
[00:07:52] But it opens you a different benefit, different value, where if your market is South America, your market is Asian market, and you want to have investors and you probably want to go through IPO at some point, you want to have payment system providers you cannot have without Tier 1 license, then the Isle of Man is great because it provides you all the benefits that Maltese license provides you and also the speed. Right?
[00:08:24] So all four licenses are good. Which one you need is a question that you may want to answer at some point because it comes down to the price.
[00:08:36] So how much are you okay spending for the license? So we just discussed four licenses and the range is between 20,000 and somewhere around 250,000.
[00:08:49] So how much are you ready to invest upfront in the beginning, how much are you fine to wait? What markets are you working on and what are your future plans? So if you can answer these questions, then you're welcome.
[00:09:03] Send me a message. I will leave you the phone number below and a link. You can go there and check if you qualify for one of these licenses and we will be happy to help you. I will send you a message where some of my team members will get back to you at some point really fast usually.
[00:09:23] And yeah, let's see what you have.
[00:09:26] Have a good time and enjoy your day. Bye.
