OREANDA-NEWS. July 28, 2015.

Tiina Soosalu, Eesti Pank Payment and Settlement Systems Department

A daily average of one million cashless payments were made in Estonia in the second quarter of 2015, with a total turnover of 393 million euros. The number of cashless payments was 5% higher compared to the same period a year ago, but the turnover was 8% less. The number of cashless payments has kept increasing over the past ten years, but turnover has been a lot more volatile, since it depends on both the general economic activity and, to a certain extent, the activity of larger individual companies. Private clients make 85% of all domestic payments, but it only makes up 9% of the total turnover of payments. Around one fifth of the cashless payments made in Estonia are settled using the interbank retail payments system STEP2.

A daily average of 116,000 domestic payments were made in the second quarter of 2015 between banks using STEP2, with a total turnover of 144 million euros. The number of payments was up 7% from the same time a year ago, while turnover increased 1% year-on-year. Although the majority of the payments are made within one bank, interbank payments have steadily made up 20-24% of all domestic payments over the past ten years. An average of 12,000 payments a day were made from Estonian banks to other countries using STEP2. Payments were made to 34 countries, with most of them going to Finland and Germany (a total of 31% of all cross-border payments).

TARGET2 express transfers, which transfer money from one bank to another in up to 15 minutes, are also used to send payments to another bank.1 This option is still not very widely used in Estonia: only 100 domestic express transfers per day were made by bank clients in the second quarter.

Private clients tend to use bank cards for purchases more and more. In the second quarter of 2015, private clients made 667,000 card payments every day, which is more than triple the number of card payments made in 2005. The share of card payments among all domestic payments made by private clients was 75% in the second quarter, while ten years ago it was 10% smaller. Private clients are withdrawing cash less and less frequently. Ten years ago, private clients withdrew cash from ATMs an average of 137,000 times a day, but in the second quarter of 2015, that number had dropped to 103,000 (117,000 times a day in the second quarter of 2011 and 108,000 times a day in the same period in 2013).

Among other cashless methods of payment, private clients use internet bank payment orders the most. An average of 109,000 internet bank payment orders per day were made in the second quarter, which is 1.7 times more than ten years ago. The share of internet bank payment orders among domestic payments has decreased, though: from 19% ten years ago to 12% now. In 2005, the third most important cashless method of payment was direct debit (10%). Now, however, e-invoice standing orders make up 6% of all cashless methods of payment. Payments made through a bank link reached 4% in the second quarter, while the share of other cashless methods of payment was 1% or less.

1 It is important to keep in mind that the Eesti Pank settlement system TARGET2 settles interbank express transfers on workdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., but depending on the bank, the time for making the last payment may be earlier.