Alena Kantaeva
Business development: banking-as-a-service, OTC and payment service providers
Alena Kantaeva works in business development across banking-as-a-service, OTC desks and payment service providers. Her mandates cover mergers and acquisitions and licensing in four verticals: forex, iGaming, payments and crypto.
She also works on offshore company formation, which is the other half of the same job: a licence application and a bank onboarding both start with an entity in a jurisdiction that the regulator and the bank will accept.
That is the applicant's side of the table, and it is the ground this site covers. Payment and e-money authorisations, forex brokerage licences, gambling and iGaming, crypto-asset service providers, and the formation and jurisdiction choice underneath them.
Nothing she writes here is legal or tax advice. Where a question turns on a point of law, or on how a structure is taxed where you live, the page says so and points you to a qualified adviser in that jurisdiction instead of answering it.
Writes for WeOpenOffshore, operated by Cosmo IT, LLC.
What She Covers on This Site
These are subject areas, not a byline list. The jurisdiction, service and licensing pages below carry no author at all: what they should be trusted on is the government fee linked to the registry that charges it, the regulator’s own published timeline, and the named company behind the site.
Payment institution licensing
Authorisation routes, capital, and what the regulator asks an applicant to file.
E-money institution licensing
How an EMI differs from a payment institution, and the safeguarding rules that follow.
Forex brokerage licensing
Jurisdiction by jurisdiction: capital, fees, and the published processing times.
Crypto-asset service providers
Registration and licensing regimes, and where each one is actually available.
Gambling and iGaming licensing
Statute-verified fee schedules and what each regulator requires on application.
Banking licences
What a banking licence costs, and the capital a regulator expects behind it.
Offshore company formation
Choosing the jurisdiction and the entity type against what each registry charges and publishes.
Bank and payment accounts
Which institutions onboard which business models, and what they ask for first.
How the Numbers Get on the Page
The figures do not rest on anyone’s experience. They rest on the document that sets them, linked where the claim is made, so you can check any one of them without taking our word for it.
- Every fee, capital figure and timeline links to the regulator or registry that publishes it, at the point of the claim. Two sources, at least one of them primary.
- Where a figure cannot be sourced, the page says it cannot be sourced. Nothing is estimated to fill a table cell.
- Fee schedules are re-checked on a 90-day cycle, and the verification date is printed on the page rather than implied.
- Regulators amend fees by instrument. A figure is taken from the amending decision in force, not from a regulator's summary page that may predate it.
What She Will Not Do
- No legal or tax advice, and no review of your own tax position. The pages set out which regimes apply to a structure and where to get advice on your own facts.
- No approval promises. A regulator grants a licence and a bank opens an account. Neither decision is ours to make or to guarantee.
- No help concealing beneficial ownership, moving funds around sanctions or capital controls, or structuring to evade tax.
- No claim to a credential she does not hold. She is not admitted to a bar, not a chartered accountant, and is not presented on this site as either.
Who reviews the legal and tax material
Nobody yet, and the guides that would need it are held back rather than published without it. Legal and tax topics on this site will carry a named reviewer with a stated qualification and jurisdiction when one is appointed. Until then, no page claims review it has not had, and no author here is described as a lawyer or an accountant.
About Alena
Who is Alena Kantaeva?
She works in business development across banking-as-a-service, OTC desks and payment service providers, with mergers, acquisitions and licensing mandates in forex, iGaming, payments and crypto, and in offshore company formation. On this site she covers financial licensing, formation and account opening.
Is she a lawyer or an accountant?
No. She holds neither qualification and is not presented as holding either. Legal and tax questions about your own position belong with a qualified adviser where you are resident.
What does she write about here?
Financial licensing, offshore company formation, and bank and payment account opening. That means payment institution and e-money authorisations, forex brokerage, crypto-asset services, gambling and iGaming, banking licences, and the jurisdiction and entity choice underneath all of them.
Does her byline appear on the pricing and jurisdiction pages?
No, and that is deliberate. Transactional pages on this site carry no author. What they should be trusted on is the government fee linked to the registry that charges it, the published timeline, and the named company behind the site. A byline there would add a persona in place of a source.
Ask About a Licence or a Structure
These reach the WeOpenOffshore desk rather than a personal line. Say the question is for Alena and it goes to her. If your question is which structure or licence fits, the consultation form asks the four things that change the answer, so the first reply already carries numbers.
Cosmo IT, LLC, trading as WeOpenOffshore, is not a law firm, a bank, or a tax adviser. Nothing on this page is legal or tax advice, and no author on this site holds a legal or accountancy qualification.
You remain responsible for reporting your interest in any foreign company, trust, or account to the tax authority where you are resident.
Licensing decisions rest with the regulator and account opening with the institution. We advise and introduce, and we do not guarantee either outcome.