German challenger bank Vivid Money has abandoned its pursuit to get an e-money licence from Ireland’s regulator, The Irish Times reported.

A Vivid Money spokesperson stated that part of the reason to withdraw the application was the time taken to secure the licence, but it was not the only factor.

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Vivid Money entered Ireland in July 2020 and applied for the licence around the same time.

Vivid said: “Since the beginning, it has been part of Vivid’s DNA to provide customers with the best products as fast as possible. The fast-paced product development in not even two years since the initial launch was only possible through our trusted partners, such as German Solarisbank for banking and German CM-Equity for our investment feature.

“To boost the pace for certain products, we initiated several workstreams, one of them being the application for an e-money license with the Central Bank of Ireland. We decided recently to pursue other options. This was a purely operational decision.”

Vivid Money, which offers banking services along with the ability to invest in stocks and cryptos, joins other fintech that have pulled back their application.

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Vivid spokesperson noted that the firm’s decision will not result in redundancies, and it was “in the process of restructuring the team involved in the application to use their expertise for other projects”.

Last month, Vivid Money raised €100m at a valuation of $886m and plans to be present in all European markets by 2023.

The spokesperson noted that the firm could potentially launch in the country shortly as the Irish market is “interesting” for Vivid Money