28 May 2026 is a date the Wallester team will remember for a long time.
After long preparation, Wallester UK Ltd has received authorisation from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Authorised Electronic Money Institution (EMI).
In practical terms, this means Wallester now operates as an officially regulated entity in the UK and can build its local business from inside the UK regulatory framework. The FCA is the UK body responsible for supervising financial services firms and ensuring they meet standards around customer protection, compliance, financial crime prevention, and operational resilience.
For Wallester, the authorisation provides the basis to work with UK clients directly, develop local partnerships, and bring Wallester Business and White-Label solutions to the market in a structured way. It is one of the most important milestones in the company’s growth to date.
A Long Time in the Making
The authorisation follows a lengthy process involving teams across Compliance, Risk, Legal, Finance, Operations, Product, and Technology.
Receiving FCA approval requires extensive preparation, documentation, reviews, testing, and ongoing engagement with regulators. Clearly, it is not something companies achieve overnight.
“This is a huge milestone for the whole Group. We have been working towards this for a long time,” said Sergei Astafjev, Wallester CEO and Co-Founder. “It took a lot of effort, time, money, documentation, meetings, reviews, questions, answers, patience and discipline. But now we have achieved it.”
The project was led by the Wallester UK team, headed by CEO Julian Brand and Chief Risk Officer Anna Maxim, with support from colleagues across departments. The UK leadership team also includes Paul Munson, CCO and MLRO, Adam George, Head of Operations, Resilience and Outsourcing, and Karine Martinez, Head of Strategic Partnerships.
Together, they have put a huge amount of work into building the foundations for Wallester’s next phase of growth in the UK market.
Why the UK Matters
Wallester was founded in Estonia in 2016. Since then, the company has grown from a small startup into the fastest-growing fintech in Europe, according to the Financial Times and Statista’s FT1000 ranking for 2026. Today, the company serves businesses across the EEA and beyond.
The UK has always been an important market. It remains one of the world’s leading centres for payments, financial services, and fintech innovation. Many Wallester clients already operate internationally, and the company has seen growing demand from businesses looking for support in the UK market as well.
Having a regulated UK entity creates a foundation for long-term growth. It allows Wallester to build local relationships, work closely with UK clients and partners, and continue expanding its presence internationally.
The company will bring its core products to the market through its London headquarters in Hanover Square. These include Wallester Business, the company’s expense management and corporate card platform, as well as Wallester White-Label solutions that enable businesses to launch branded card programmes and embedded finance products. Wallester’s proprietary payment processing platform powers all of this, developed in-house and built on AWS infrastructure.
The Real Work Starts Now
For the team involved, receiving the licence is a major achievement. At the same time, everyone recognises that it is only the beginning.
“Financial services are fundamentally built on trust. Receiving the licence is a significant milestone, but now the real work begins,” said Julian Brand, CEO of Wallester UK. “Our focus is on building long-term relationships with customers and partners by delivering a reliable, secure and highly compliant service every day.”
The next step is bringing Wallester’s products to the UK market, building partnerships, growing the local business, and turning the regulatory foundation into real commercial activity.
In other words, the licence creates the opportunity. The focus now shifts to earning trust, delivering value, and building lasting relationships with customers and partners across the UK.
Or, as Sergei Astafjev summed it up:
“This is not just another licence. This is a new chapter for Wallester.”
And for the UK team that helped make it happen, that chapter is really just beginning.
