The Ministry of Finance this week announced an offer of Estonian government bonds, primarily targeting local small-scale investors rather than international or professional investors.

At the press conference introducing the offer, representatives from both the finance ministry and the main banks noted that these 3.3 percent yield bonds might even appeal to investors taking their first baby steps in financial markets.

According to data from the Nasdaq Tallinn Stock Exchange, as of June 1, 2023, 111,600 Estonian residents with a securities account held at least one security traded on that exchange.

In mid-2022, there were 107,000 such accounts; a year earlier, 98,000. This means over two years, 13,600 new accounts of this kind were opened.

The most significant jump took place between the summer of 2021 and the summer of 2022, when nearly 44,000 new securities holders were added to the total, compared with just 743 between June 2016 and the end of June 2017.

Nelli Janson, head of the investor community at Estonian bank LHV Pank, told ERR that most new securities accounts were opened in 2021.

This has been dubbed the "IPO year," when several companies attractive to investors were listed on the stock exchange, and many people wanted a piece of these stock offerings. In that year, the number of new securities accounts opened was nearly 130 percent higher than in either the previous or following year.

Janson said: "The number of new securities accounts began to grow significantly from 2015 onward, likely driven by the general increase in the well-being of people in Estonia, with a substantial jump in 2020 when trading fees for Baltic stocks were eliminated."

LHV has been providing securities accounts since 1999 and currently has over 100,000 clients with investment assets, the bank says.

Meanwhile Kadi Tõnismaa, Head of Investment at Swedbank, put the number of clients with securities accounts at112,000, with the caveat that some of these accounts are empty, some belong to non-residents, and others to residents holding securities traded on exchanges other than the Tallinn one.

Elisabet Visnapuu, head of savings, investments, and pensions at SEB retail bank, noted that clients with that bank can open either an internal securities account within the bank, or a Baltic securities account.

The latter is meant for trading securities settled in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, while the former is used by clients who want to trade securities from other countries, including the U.S. and Germany.

As of July this year, 6 percent of SEB's private and business clients had opened at least one of these two types of securities accounts, the bank says.

Visnapuu said: "It's worth pointing out that while both private and business clients can open a securities account, over 90 percent of these accounts are held by private clients."

"Additionally, it has become increasingly common for people to hold two or more securities accounts, with over 30 percent of all securities account holders doing so."

SEB said it has not observed any period in the last five years where the number of new securities accounts opened significantly exceeded the usual trend, however.

"Instead, the opening of securities accounts has been a steadily growing trend over the years," Visnapuu said.

At SEB, opening a securities account is free of charge via internet banking to both private and business clients, plus no monthly maintenance fee is levied.

Holding Baltic and foreign securities worth up to €100,000 on a securities account is also free to business clients.

At LHV, holding Baltic stocks and bonds and making up to 100 transactions per month is free to clients. When investing in foreign stocks and shares, the service fee with most countries is 0.14 percent of the transaction amount, with a minimum fee of €9 per transaction.

"With certain countries, the service fee may differ. Holding foreign stocks worth up to €50,000 comes free of charge. For bond transactions, the service fee is €6 plus 0.2 percent of the transaction total," LHV's Nelli Janson said.

At Swedbank, holding Baltic securities and Swedbank Group funds is free to private individuals.

Other investments up to €100,000 are also free of charge, but for amounts exceeding €100,000, a fee of 0.008 percent applies, to a maximum of €8.

With businesses, the fee structure is the same save for the fact that amounts exceeding €100,000 incur a fee of 0.008 percent, with no maximum limit. Swedbank charges businesses a fee of €5 for an empty account.

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