OREANDA-NEWS. January 29, 2014. The Latvian Association of Commercial Banks (LKA), which represents the banking sector in Latvia, has received a letter of thanks from the Latvian Prime Minister for the major investment which banks have made in the introduction of the euro in Latvia.

“This letter of thanks is deserved by all banks and all bank employees who ensured that the transfer from the lats to the euro in Latvia was comfortable, quick and effective,” says LKA president Martins Bicevskis. “These people did not count up their working hours when doing that work, and they sought out the best possible solutions. Banks also ensured very successful co-operation with the government in terms of providing it with all necessary information and by achieving the highest goals and dealing with the biggest challenges.”

As is known, Latvia introduced the euro on January 1, 2014, and banks ensured a transfer to the euro that was maximally comfortable, inexpensive and simple. Breaks in operations were minimal, and non-cash payments and use of remote banking services were encouraged:

Payment cards basically worked without interruption, and the first payment with a card occurred four minutes after midnight;

All ATMs began to offer euros during the first half hour, with the first euro banknote being withdrawn from an ATM two minutes after midnight;

Most banks offered their Online banking systems for viewing at first, with some banks restoring full operations on the morning of January 1 and others doing so during the course of the day;

Online banking payments were made similarly to other turns of years, and by January 2, payment systems were fully back in place;

Several banks opened some of their branches on January 1 to serve client interests;

An innovation in Latvia was that banks offered legal entities which were their clients access to pre-delivery of euros, calling on the clients to ensure that they had enough cash for the first few days of 2014.

The two currencies were in parallel circulation between January 1 and January 14, and this marked out several positive tendencies in the use of financial services by Latvia’s residents. Most people did not withdraw lats that had been deposited late in 2013 and lats and euros that had been deposited early in 2014 into bank accounts, instead far more frequently using payment cards. Both in December and in January, people actively used ATMs which accepted cash deposits. By the beginning of January, most of those deposits were in euros, no longer lats. Queues at bank branches were far smaller than had been expected, because most residents and businesspeople heard the request from banks to be rational in terms of using electronic payment resources and not being in any hurry to convert cash.