One of the Baltics' most experienced leaders — combining fintech and banking experience, and one of very few who has actually run a lending business across Spain, Poland and Romania — takes over as Hive Finance Group enters its next phase: a sharper focus on profitability.
Hive Finance Group has appointed Krisjanis Znotins as its new Group CEO. Znotins brings more than fifteen years of leadership across international fintech, banking, leasing, and serving on supervisory boards. He also becomes a minority shareholder of the Group and arrives at a moment when Hive Finance Group is moving from foundation-building toward streamlined operations and sustained profitability.
About Hive Finance Group
Hive Finance Group is based in Vilnius and operates in three core markets: Poland (through Ekspres Pożyczka and Firmeo), Spain (FinJet), and Romania (Credilink). 2024 was the Group's first year of consolidated profitability, with €11.5 million in revenue and €1.89 million in EBITDA. Alongside its lending businesses, the Group also runs Hive5, an alternative investment marketplace, which to date has paid more than €4.6 million in interest to over 29,000 investors. Earlier this year Hive Finance Group became part of Ruptela Group, a move that brought additional strategic and financial weight to the business.
A strategic fit, at the right moment
The most compelling part of this appointment is a simple fact: Krisjanis has done this before, in the same markets, with a similar model — and he has done it profitably.
Most recently, as CEO of Wandoo Finance Group (August 2023 – January 2025), he ran a Latvia-headquartered consumer fintech serving underbanked customers in Spain, Poland and Romania — the same three markets that define Hive Finance Group today. Under Krisjanis's leadership, Wandoo reached stable profitability, deepened its use of AI in underwriting, completed a shift to fully digital customer journeys, and diversified its funding across equity, the P2P platform, and individual investors.
The architecture — lending companies in European markets fueled by funding from an investor marketplace — is structurally close to what Hive Finance Group runs with Hive5 today. In short, he has built and turned profitable a group that looks a lot like ours.
A welcome from the Founder
"Krisjanis is exactly the leader we needed for this next chapter," said Andrius Rupsys, founder of Hive Finance Group. "There aren't many people in Europe who combine deep banking discipline, listed-fintech operating experience and real operational familiarity with Poland, Spain and Romania. His track record is remarkably consistent: he leaves every business he touches stronger, more profitable and more scalable. But what made the decision easy was the alignment on values — ambition, accountability, transparency, and a real belief that the team is the centre of everything."
Track record
Before Wandoo, Krisjanis Znotins spent five years at Eleving Group, one of the largest Baltic-born financial groups in Europe, serving as CEO of the Latvian business. At Eleving's Latvian business he led a strategic transformation from traditional lending into a mobility platform covering car finance, used-car rental and subscription services — delivering €5.6 million in profit in 2021, the highest in the company's history, and overseeing a €30 million bond listing on Nasdaq First North.
Earlier, he spent nearly a decade at DNB and its successor Luminor, one of the largest banks in the Baltics, ultimately serving on the Luminor Latvia management team as Head of Business Clients, with a portfolio of 30,000+ SMEs.
Alongside his executive career, he is Council member at ALTUM, Latvia's state-owned development finance institution with around €1.5 billion in assets, Council member at Pauls Stradiņš Clinical University Hospital — the second-largest hospital in Latvia.
What this means for investors
For Hive5 investors, the most important message is continuity. All loan repayments continue on time, and nothing changes in day-to-day operations.
What does change is the direction. The Group is now firmly oriented toward profitability rather than growth. We have invested in new branches and capacity over the last period; the priority now is to make those operations work more efficiently, and more profitably — and to broaden what we offer investors.
In line with that, a new 2-year Firmeo product at 14.5% interest launches this week on Hive5, giving investors a longer-duration, higher-yield option in our most established product line.
To further expand our offering, we will explore new products that support greater diversification while still maintaining same-day access to funds.
Both reflect the broader direction under the new leadership: more diversified products and more flexibility for the people who fund our growth.
In his own words
"Hive Finance Group is at the stage I find most exciting," Krisjanis Znotins said. "The foundations are built, but the next steps are about building Group-wide systematic processes that support sustained, profitable growth. In the end it comes down to people — meeting Andrius and several of the key people around him made the decision clear from the start."
Asked where he sees the biggest opportunity, Znotins points to three levers: operational excellence; deeper use of technology and AI across underwriting, collections, customer acquisition and service; and careful, selective expansion into adjacent products, new markets and partnerships.
Looking ahead
His immediate focus will be on understanding the business in detail, getting to know the team and key stakeholders, aligning everyone around a focused strategic roadmap, and delivering stable profitability — turning the foundations that have been built into a leaner, more efficient, more profitable Group.