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📢 New venture with Nordic Law, joining a Central Helsinki office with decades of history and a team of sharp minds ✒️ 🇫🇮 If you have Finland somewhere on your roadmap, there is a good chance we could help or speed up your plans. We also know how to help with the headaches. We are leaders in crypto and fintech, and will soon be in iGaming, too, completing the palette. B2C, B2B, and lighter supplier needs have the same priority. References: https://lnkd.in/dZSE9Psi 🇲🇹 I will remain mostly in Malta and have the same phone number, email: [email protected], and I am always interested in good excuses for too much coffee or a malt beverage. Thanks, guys. I feel privileged to get to work with you. As much as I hate the cliché of being excited about this and that, I am 🤝 Jon Hautamäki, Max Atallah, Mikael Huhtala, Alexander Sundström, Anton O. Odabasi, Niko Hannolainen, Emily Rikkilä, Rufus Rusanen, Emma Hermanson, Vilhelmi Korhonen, Ellen Fahlgren, Pyry Rajala, Emil Isokirmo

Nordic Law is expanding its iGaming practice and the related service offering, and today I am excited to welcome Heikki Koivula to our team as Senior iGaming Industry Advisor, based in Malta, starting 1 October 2026. The timing is deliberate. License applications under the new Gambling Act are being prepared now, with 75 or more applications already pending, and the first license decisions are expected during this year. Heikki joins us with over 10 years of experience in the iGaming and wider gambling market, in Finland and in other jurisdictions: ➡️ Regulatory compliance, responsible gaming and licensing, both in-house and as an external advisor. ➡️ Hands-on licensing project experience that gives practical insights into where applications run into trouble and how supervisory expectations differ between markets. ➡️ A working knowledge of the systems and controls the regulation requires, from having designed and implemented them rather than from regulation alone. For our clients, the practical effect is application and post-licensing work that combines a legal reading of the Gambling Act with someone who has built and run what regulators in several European markets actually require. Malta, where Heikki is based, also hosts the largest concentration of online gambling licensees in the EU, whereby this puts us in an excellent position to provide Finnish insights on a local level. With Heikki on board, we continue building our iGaming practice into one of the leading practices in Finland. A warm welcome, Heikki – let’s get to work.

Today, 1 October, Heikki Koivula joins Nordic Law as Senior iGaming Industry Advisor. Heikki is an experienced gambling industry expert with a strong commercial and operational background and extensive experience across both B2C and B2B gambling businesses. He has nearly a decade of experience in the gambling industry in Malta, along with strong expertise in the commercial, regulatory, and compliance aspects of the sector. Through his extensive work on international gambling projects spanning multiple markets, Heikki has gained a strong understanding of how different markets operate and how their business and regulatory environments evolve. In Finland, he has taken an active role in shaping the gambling regulatory framework through industry association activities, working alongside industry stakeholders to support the development of a new licensing model. Heikki also regularly shares his expertise at gambling industry conferences across Europe as a speaker, moderator, and panelist. His insights on current industry developments frequently feature in leading European gambling and iGaming publications. We are proud to welcome Heikki to our team. His commercial and operational insight will further strengthen Nordic Law’s industry expertise. A warm welcome to Nordic Law, Heikki! NORDIC LAW — your goals guide everything we do. www.nordiclaw.fi #GamingLaw #GamblingRegulation #iGaming #Gambling #GamblingIndustry

One of the most peculiar provisions of #PSD3 relates to the issuance of electronic money tokens (EMT). Today the issuance of EMTs is reserved for electronic money institutions and banks, and supervisors have set the bar high, in most jurisdictions arguably out of reach, for one entity to be both an EMT issuer and a CASP. In the current version of PSD3, believe it or not, CASPs get to issue EMTs through a lighter PI licensing process. The logic is simple, even if the drafting is not: (i) EMIs cease to exist, (ii) you need a PI license to provide payment services, (iii) issuing electronic money becomes one payment service among the others, (iv) given that EMTs are deemed electronic money, issuance of EMTs also becomes one payment service among the others, and (v) a CASP applying for PI license can largely reuse the file it already filed with its supervisor under MiCA. Because nothing can ever be simple when it comes to crypto-asset segment, then there is Rec. 16. The recital states that that mere issuance of EMTs should not require a PI license where the issuer is a CASP, “except where payment services are provided”. However, per step (iv), issuing EMTs is itself a payment service, which means that CASPs may not issue EMTs without a PI license. Hopefully this will be clarified in the final text of PSD3. To conclude, the intent seems clear: the legislator wants to open EMT issuance to CASPs, rather than leave it out of reach as it has been. That barrier has been disproportionate for some time, and removing it is welcome. Or am I reading too much into this?

İstanbul'dan AB'ye — Temmuz'un ilk haftalarından notlar Burada kurucular ve yatırımcılarla verimli bir dizi görüşme gerçekleştirdim — hepsinin ortak noktası, hedeflerinin tek bir pazarın çok ötesine uzanması. Bu hafta Ankara'da gerçekleşen NATO zirvesi, Türkiye'nin hem AB'nin yakın coğrafyası hem de daha geniş jeopolitik düzlem açısından en belirleyici aktörlerden biri olduğunu bir kez daha ortaya koydu. Aynı durum iş dünyası tarafında ve Türk şirketlerinin AB'ye yaklaşımında da kendini gösteriyor — bu, şu ana kadar yaptığım her görüşmeye de yansıyan bir gerçek. AB sizin yol haritanızda yer alıyorsa — ister büyüme ister yatırım tarafında — ay sonuna kadar takvimde hâlâ birkaç uygun zaman dilimi var. Şu ana kadarki görüşmelerin çoğu aynı sorularla başladı: genişleme için somut adımlar nelerdir ve hangi sektöre özgü düzenlemeler değerlendirilmeli. Bunlar sizin de aklınızdaysa, bir araya gelmekten memnuniyet duyarım.

From Istanbul to the EU — Notes from the first weeks of July Been having a good run of interesting conversations here with founders and investors whose ambitions clearly reach well beyond a single market. This week's NATO summit in Ankara underlined Türkiye's position as one of the most consequential players when it comes to both the EU's neighborhood and the broader geopolitical landscape. The same shows on the business side and in how Turkish companies are approaching the EU, which is also something that has been reflected in each conversation I have had so far. If the EU is on your roadmap, whether on the expansion or investment side, there are still a few open slots on the calendar before the end of the month. Most conversations so far have started with the same questions: what are the concrete steps for the expansion, and what sector-specific matters or regulation should be evaluated. If those are on your mind too, happy to sit down.