The significance of financial technologies constantly grows as they have become a part of national economies. Sharing economy or alternative financing includes various digital financial activities outside the traditional banking system like crowdfunding, peer-to-peer lending and other alternatives. The research aim is to evaluate alternative finance trends in Europe. The research results show that peer-to-peer platforms mainly ensuring a high return rate have recently become very popular allowing to invest resources in various projects including real estate, loans, invoice trading and businesses. The main significant drawback of these platforms is that they are risky. The alternative finance market volumes continue to increase steadily year by year reaching USD 22.60 billion in 2020 and the United Kingdom has the largest market share of 59.35% (USD 12.6 billion) in 2020. At the beginning of 2022, there are 315 alternative finance platforms in Europe, the largest number of alternative finance platforms operate in the UK, and peer-to-peer lending (both consumer and business) and invoice trading are three the most widespread types of alternative finance in Europe covering 68% of the entire market size. The rest types of alternative finance occupy considerably lower market shares, i.e. 3-7% each. The decrease in P2P lending volumes in 2020 might be directly related with the Covid pandemic and change in consumer priorities; though, the dynamics of P2P business lending shows a constant moderate increase in the lending volumes.

The issues regarding consumption of energy generated from fossil resources have become particularly relevant in 2022 due to the aggravation of political and economic circumstances causing an energy crisis. Taking into account the existing need to increase the amount of energy produced from renewable energy resources in the European Union, the development of the digital and innovation economy as well as the fact that the mining of crypto-assets can consume large amounts of energy, the study aims to evaluate the impact of the introduction of crypto-assets regulation on the possibilities of using crypto-assets in the renewable energy sector. The results of the NOISE (Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths, Exceptions) method used indicate the main need – to introduce regulation in an industry where it has not existed before. The most important identified opportunity is to create new crypto-assets and renewable energy business models; improvements are related to transparency of operations and environmental awareness. Main strengths – the introduction of a single, globally new regulatory framework. Regulation’s exceptions are mainly related to even more significant responsibility towards the environment and sustainability issues. Statistical analysis of Bitcoin energy consumption data was performed and it indicates increasing consumption of energy to generate crypto-assets. The share of renewable energy resources used for crypto mining is decreasing, while the use of fossil resources (e.g. natural gas) is increasing. The results of the study, in general, form one of the first scientific opinions on the use of crypto-assets specifically in the renewable energy sector, considering the current legal framework’s development process and indicating future research topics.

Immovable property tax is one of the national taxes the administration of which is subjected to continuous changes. Frequent amendments to the law “On Immovable Property Tax” (1997) also evidence the mentioned changes. The procedure for tax calculation, tax base, and tax rates has been considerably changed in the course of time. The research provides a discussion on the changes in tax formation, development, and administration in Latvia to understand better the essence of immovable property tax. The research aim was to analyse the development of immovable property tax and the course of reforms for the period of 1998-2012. The research also studies the expected changes in the application of immovable property tax from the year 2013. It is envisaged to transfer the rights to local governments to determine the immovable property tax rates in their administrative territories within the range of 0.2-3% from 2013. The research concludes that frequent reforms of immovable property tax have promoted the development of a new, stable, and predictable methodology for the future application of immovable property tax in Latvia. The analysis of revenues from immovable property tax for the period of 2006-2011 is based on the annually growing significance of immovable property tax. The research suggests that immovable property tax is the only tax the revenues of which have increased within the period of 2009-2011 and the largest revenues from immovable property tax are collected in Riga City municipality comprising 53% of the total revenues from immovable property tax collected in Latvia.

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Non-bank crediting has become popular in Latvia as well as in other European countries due to various economic and social factors. Since the banks in recent years have introduced much stricter lending conditions, non-bank crediting sector has experienced a significant increase not only in Latvia but also in other European and world countries. Non-bank crediting market actively began to develop through a wide promotion of consumer credits in the major mass media; thus, creating human interest in the availability of fast and easy processable credits. Non-bank credit companies without customer deposits have transformed the present credit market, since a number of new players entered the market testing new business and crediting models and providing solutions to credit-challenged customers. The research aim is to study the non-bank consumer crediting trends in Latvia and it employs a monographic descriptive method as well as the methods of analysis and synthesis and graphics. The research results demonstrate that the popularity of non-bank credits is still growing among consumers, since the total amounts of non-bank credits disbursed for the first time have increased by EUR 116.61 million or 33.18% for the period 2012-2015 with distance credits being the most demanded credit type accounting for approximately 40% of all non-bank credits. Non-bank credit market is saturated and there is a fierce competition between non-bank crediting companies in terms of interest rates, crediting conditions and other factors.