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Banks in Estonia offer a wide range of financial services from everyday banking to sophisticated wealth management, and are also the biggest providers of leasing and factoring services.
Banks in Estonia offer a wide range of financial services from everyday banking to sophisticated wealth management and are also the biggest providers of leasing and factoring services. The largest banks are subsidiaries and affiliates of Scandinavian banking groups. In addition, there are other banks that are Estonian-owned or have owners in other countries.
4 largest banks (by market share):
A full list of banks in Estonia can be found on the website of Estonian Banking Association.
It is hard to overstate the enormous role Estonia’s banks have played in creating and promoting the nation’s e-government solutions. Banks not only wholeheartedly embraced e-ID, encouraging customers to use their ID cards for secure transactions, even giving away free card readers, they also helped move the population online by developing and offering high-quality internet banking services. Today, over 99% of all banking transactions in the country are carried out online.
Users of bank services benefit from the convenience of having user-friendly online services available 24/7, a vast improvement over typical banking hours. In contrast with the US, where a third of money transfers are still carried out by writing and mailing checks, which can take days to process, Estonia’s e-banking system is simple, secure, and practically instantaneous.
Based on regulatory changes in 2017, opening a bank account is now possible online using an e‑ID or e-Residency card, a video interview recording, and facial recognition technology. Banks are working hard to develop technical solutions that will allow them to welcome clients from anywhere without a face-to-face meeting by enhancing the security of customer identification.
Read more about e-banking on the webpage of e-Estonia.
Estonian e-Residents can use a growing number of payment and banking services that are partnering with e-Residency. Some of these services are operating from Estonia, some from other countries.
There are even services that enable you to open a bank account for your business without physically visiting Estonia.
Estonia’s e-Business Register is an advanced and secure tool that allows entrepreneurs to register a new business online in just minutes without having to go to a notary or some other official. The e-Business register allows you to register a new company over the Internet, change data in the business register, file annual reports, manage the members’ list for political parties or make detailed inquires about other companies. All it takes to register an Estonian company is an ID card, mobile-ID or e-Residency card, and an internet connection.
Find more information and an up-to-date list of banking and payment providers on e-Residency’s Marketplace and browse e-Residency’s Knowledge Base for further details.
There is a variety of both national and EU grants available that support competitiveness, innovation, recruiting foreign specialists, and much more. The Estonian government’s strategy focuses on human capital and smart economy investments.
Emphasis is on innovation and new business models in the following three smart specialization areas:
More information about various grants can be found on the websites of Enterprise Estonia and the European Union’s Structural Funds in Estonia.
There are Enterprise Estonia’s investment aid schemes available. A list of grants available to foreign investors can be found here.
Here are some useful links regarding financing of a company:
You are also welcome to send us an enquiry for more specific information.
What is it like to run a business in Estonia? How to benefit from the e-solutions and the efficiency of our business culture? What are the opportunities in specific sectors? Who to partner up with?
The Estonian Investment Agency’s team is happy to help you via its complimentary e-Consulting service, organize online or offline follow-up events such as virtual investment visits and guide you through the fairly simple process of investing in Estonia.
