Digital Payments & Fintech - Gibraltar

The GFSC authorises and supervises payment and e-money firms under the Financial Services Act 2019, which consolidated Gibraltar's financial services legislation into a single statute with activity-based 'permissions'.

Payment service providers are authorised/registered under the Financial Services (Payment Services) Regulations 2020, which implement the PSD2-style payment-services regime as Gibraltar domestic law.

EMIs are licensed under the Financial Services (Electronic Money) Regulations 2020; a Part 7 permission to an electronic money institution also extends to providing payment services. E-money issuers must safeguard customer funds received in exchange for e-money.

Because Gibraltar transposed the PSD2 framework, account information service providers (AISPs) and payment initiation service providers (PISPs) can be registered/authorised, enabling third-party access to payment accounts with customer consent.

Gibraltar was an early mover with the Financial Services (Distributed Ledger Technology) Regulations (in force from January 2018, now under the FSA 2019), requiring firms that use DLT to store or transmit value on behalf of others to hold a GFSC DLT licence under ten core principles.

Gibraltar is outside the EU and EEA, so EU passporting no longer applies; firms rely on Gibraltar's domestic authorisations and on the UK–Gibraltar financial services framework rather than EU single-market access.