• The number of cashless payments made by individuals and by companies has risen steadily, though the turnover of payments has been notably more volatile
• The number of card payments by private individuals increased by 6% last year
• Improved payment services at small banks have raised the number of interbank payments

An average of one million cashless payments were made each day in 2015 in Estonia, with a total value of 400 million euros. The number of payments per day was 5% more than in 2014, but the turnover was 6% less.

Some 63% of all the payments within the country were card payments initiated by private individuals, but they made up only 2.5% of the total turnover of payments. Payments initiated by companies in internet banks and other corporate data channels provided 76% of the turnover, but only 13% of all payments.

The number of cashless payments made by individuals and by companies has risen steadily, though the turnover of payments has been notably more volatile. The corporate turnover is affected by the general level of economic activity, and also by the activities of individual large companies. The number of payments initiated by individuals was lifted by card payments to be 6% higher in 2015 than in the previous year, but the turnover of those payments was down 5% at the same time, mainly because of a decline in the value of the turnover of credit transfers through internet banks.

Around one fifth of the cashless payments made in Estonia are settled through the STEP2 interbank retail payments system. In 2015 the banks in Estonia made an average of 112,000 payments per day through the STEP2 system, with a total turnover of 142 million euros a day. This means that 7% more payments were made per day than in the previous year, while the total value was 1% larger. The number of interbank payments increased in 2015 faster than the total number of domestic payments did. This was mainly because smaller banks have improved both their payment services and the accessibility of those services for clients, and so clients are more widely spread between banks than previously.

From January 2016, Eesti Pank is publishing statistics on the interbank payment system STEP2 for Estonian banks on its website: http://statistika.eestipank.ee/?lng=en#treeMenu/FINANTSSEKTOR/620/967

Statistics for Eesti Pank's payment and settlement systems

Eesti Pank will publish its next statement on payments statistics on 26 April.

For further information:
Ingrid Mitt
Public Relations Office
Tel: +372 668 0965, +372 512 6843
Email: [email protected]
Press enquiries: [email protected]