Tiina Soosalu, Eesti Pank expert on developing payments
Kristjan Lember, cash analyst

• The survey of payment behaviour for Eesti Pank found that people in Estonia are very satisfied with the payment solutions available to them. They particularly appreciate how convenient and up-to-date the solutions are, and also the security of those solutions. There was some concern about the activity of scammers though.
• The general preference was to do everyday shopping by visiting shops in person, and that has not changed over recent years. The ways of paying have changed though, as smart watches and smart phones are used for as many as a quarter of payments. Young people even used their smart devices more often than physical bank cards for payments.
• The strong support for the rounding rule and the evident opposition to the idea of a cashless society show that cash maintains its important role as a means of payment and that there is clear appreciation of a system of cash circulation that is well-organised and rational.

The majority of residents of Estonia, at 87% of respondents, make their everyday purchases mainly in shops. Only 3% of respondents mainly make those purchases online, and that is the same as it was two years ago. Online purchases have started to become preferred for larger purchases like furniture and home electronics though. Although 40% of respondents choose to make their purchases exclusively in bricks-and-mortar shops, a third are happy to make large purchases online, and a fifth prefer to use only online shops.

Bank cards remain the most common form of payment and are used for 69% of payments, but physical bank cards are used much less than they were two years ago, when they made 82% of payments. The respondents who prefer to pay by smartphone or smartwatch instead of bank card have increased meanwhile to 23%, and the share of those aged under 30 who pay with smart devices was even higher at 55%. Cash was preferred for payments by 8% of respondents, down from 10% in previous years, and older people pay in cash more often than young people. Cash is mainly used for small payments, and for making personal payments to other people. One reason for this is that it is not always possible to pay in cash everywhere. There were 20% of respondents who said they do not use cash for purchases at all, up from 14% in 2023.

The payment survey asked for the first time whether there have been any problems with points of sale accepting cash. The response was that 57% of respondents have not had a cash payment refused in the past year, but 14% had experienced this, and a very small number of them had experienced it frequently. The problem was encountered most commonly by people who often use cash, while 28% of respondents said they had not had to use cash at all for paying with during the preceding year.

The respondents considered that the ability to pay by card in points of sale has improved. The share of residents who have never been unable to pay by card was 30% this year and 23% two years ago. Card payments are most often unavailable at markets, in small shops, or when paying for beauty services.

For making payments to other people, such as family and friends, 39% of respondents preferred their mobile phone bank and 36% their online bank, which is a reverse of the preferences of a couple of years ago. This division is particularly marked among young people, as 71% of respondents under the age of 30 use the mobile bank and only 13% use the internet bank. Cash was preferred for personal payments by 23% of respondents.

The request-to-pay solution in mobile banks^[1] has been used by 36% of respondents, but users of the solution were more common among those aged below 30 at 62%. Although these payments are used more frequently than before, 57% of the population have never used them, while 7% do not even know that such a solution exists.

A clear majority of respondents at 63% considered that access to cash had not changed over the year, which was also the most common response in earlier surveys. However, 15% thought that access had become worse and 5% saw an improvement. ATMs are used for withdrawing cash by 96% of residents of Estonia, and this was also unchanged from earlier years. The situation with cash was considered good or very good by 62%, and that figure has increased over the years.

The rounding rule that started to apply at the beginning of the year was approved of by 61% of the population, while 21% were dissatisfied with it. Support for the idea of a cashless society has been decreasing steadily and was only 22% in the latest survey, while 64% of respondents opposed the idea.

As many as 89% of respondents want to get paper receipts for purchases. Some 54% of people prefer to get a paper receipt for larger purchases where it acts as a guarantee and 15% want one when they cannot get a digital receipt, while other reasons include making purchases for someone else, using receipts in a draw or lottery, or planning to revisit the same shop again and needing the receipt as proof of the earlier visit.

Cash is used for holding savings by 32% of respondents, with adults under 30 using cash most often for savings at 46%. Three quarters of respondents say they want to be ready for an emergency, while other reasons for holding cash were wanting to give it as a gift or keeping a reserve for cases where it is not possible to pay by transfer.

The opinion given by Estonian residents of the payment solutions offered by the banks is very high. They scored the payment solutions at 4.4 out of 5 for convenience and modernity, and 4.3 out of 5 for security. All these opinions are a little higher than they were in 2021. At the same time, a lot of respondents expressed concern about how active scammers are, which has the consequence that users of payment systems do not feel secure. There were also some respondents who have suffered a loss to fraudsters. The concern about scams shows how widespread the problem is, but also shows that people are aware of it and consequently act more cautiously.

See also the figures for the results of the survey 

The survey of the payment behaviour of residents of Estonia was carried out by Turu-uuringute AS. It ran from 5-12 September and there were 1010 respondents from all across Estonia. Eesti Pank orders the survey of payment behaviour every two years and has previously run the survey in 2023 and 2021.

For further information:
Hanna Jürgenson
Communications officer
5692 0930
Email: [email protected]
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