Banks, Estonia, Financial Services

Ede Raagmets, head of customer services at Swedbank, said that approximately 20,000 customers of Swedbank Estonia have regularly used only password cards when accessing the online bank in the last few months. 

The most popular alternative to the password card among the customers of Swedbank Estonia is Smart-ID, which has been adopted by approximately 60 percent of former users of the password card. Approximately a third chose the ID-card and 10 percent the PIN calculator or Mobile-ID.

"That quite many people have started using the ID-card in the place of a password card stead is not surprising. The vast majority of people have it and they have started using it more broadly," Raagmets said.

Helena Kokk, head of e-channels at Coop Pank, said that the number of password card users in the bank has decreased by a half over the year. There are approximately 1,500 active users of password cards in the bank still.

"People use ID-cards, Smart-ID and Mobile-ID alike to access internet bank," told Kokk.

At the beginning of January, active users of password cards still numbered about 3,000 at Coop Pank and 28,000 at Swedbank Estonia.

SEB is to abandon password cards a few days later, on Feb. 4, while Luminor and LHV never introduced password cards.