Payment Service Provider License in Gibraltar
Level 1
Gibraltar0
People viewed this LicenseLicense Type
Payment Service Provider
RegulatorGFSC
Share CapitalN/A
Deadlines
9 to 14 months(approx.)
Estimated Market Price
From €75,000
Level 1
GibraltarEstimated Market Price
From €75,000
0
People viewed this LicenseLicense Type
Payment Service Provider
RegulatorGFSC
Share CapitalN/A
Deadlines
9 to 14 months (approx.)
Level 2
License Details
Explore full requirements, allowed activities, taxation, and operational scope.
Permitted Activities
Issuing payment instruments and/or acquiring of payment transactions
Execution of payment transactions (credit transfers, direct debits, card payments)
Money remittance; cash‑in/cash‑out via agents/ATMs (if authorised)
Payment initiation services (PIS) and account information services (AIS) (if authorised)
Foreign exchange services ancillary to payments
Merchant payment gateway & settlement services
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear, concise info to help you understand the process!
Today, through a transitional arrangement with a visible expiry and no successor in force. The Gibraltar Authorisation Regime, the intended permanent framework under section 22 of and Schedule 6 to the UK Financial Services Act 2021, is not in force: HM Treasury has never made the implementing secondary legislation and no approved activities have been specified. HM Treasury's own consultation response places the payment and e-money regimes among those sitting outside the scope of the Gibraltar Order, to be handled by tailored arrangements. Access runs instead on the temporary arrangements, extended by SI 2025/1182 to 31 December 2026.
Under Part 9 of the Financial Services Act 2019 a person must give a section 111 notice and obtain approval before completing an acquisition or increase of control, with sections 114 to 116 defining acquiring, increasing and reducing control and sections 118 to 119 setting the criteria. Thresholds are 10% — or below 10% where the holding confers significant influence — then 20%, 30% and 50%, with majority control triggering enhanced financial forecasting. The period is 60 working days for non-complex or moderately complex changes, but six months where the GFSC considers the change complex, running from its acknowledgement of a complete notice.
Yes, in June 2026. From 1 June 2026 the GFSC moved change-of-control notifications onto a new online portal with logic-driven forms, automated information requests, structure-chart building and live status tracking, and published Gibraltar-specific Guidance Notes on Change of Control, version 1 of 1 June 2026, replacing the EU Joint Guidelines it had previously applied. Anyone who last transacted in Gibraltar before mid-2026 will prepare the wrong pack. Assessment criteria remain reputation and integrity, management competence, financial soundness, prudential capacity and money-laundering risk.
More reporting than the UK required until recently. Gibraltar's payment services framework imposes the core safeguarding duty with a resolution pack, segregation at authorised credit institutions or investment in secure liquid low-risk assets with an authorised custodian, or insurance or guarantee cover payable into a designated separate account — plus a monthly safeguarding return to the GFSC within 15 business days of month-end. Gibraltar therefore already had the resolution-pack and monthly-return features the FCA only introduced on 7 May 2026.
For a small institution, yes, on stated periods: failure over at least 12 months to provide the service, or failure over at least six months to carry on business activity. For a full Part 7 permission holder the power sits in section 69 of the Financial Services Act 2019, whose dormancy wording could not be extracted — though the superseded 2011 regulations carried the identical 12-month and six-month formulation, so the substance almost certainly survives. For a shelf entity being marketed, that pair of periods is the first thing to check against the date of authorisation.
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