Estonians prefer paying with a card to withdrawing cash

Statistics from Eesti Pank show a clear trend of increased growth in the use of cards for payments. In 2012 turnover from card payments exceeded total cash withdrawals, with average monthly card payments reaching 325 million euros last year, while cash withdrawals from ATMs averaged 303 million euros a month. The difference between the number of transactions from card payments and the number of cash withdrawals was particularly significant, with an average of 18.5 million card payments being made each month in 2012, which is equivalent to 600 thousand a day, while cash withdrawals were less than one fifth of that number at 117 thousand transactions per day.

The average sum of each card payment transaction was 17.6 euros in 2012, which was similar to the 17.1 euros of 2011. Individual cash withdrawals have increased by 10% over the year, averaging 86 euros in 2012, up from 78 euros in 2011.

The number of ATMs in Estonia has fallen. In 2012 there were a total of 934 ATMs operating in Estonia, whereas in 2008 there were over 1000. The number of points of sale has remained the same and at the end of 2012 they numbered more than 28 thousand.

Source: Bank of Estonia