Providing an overview of the association's 2018-2020 strategy on Tuesday, Estonian Banking Association board chairman Erki Kilu said that the goal is to establish a network of joint ATMs for banks operating in Estonia.

"This has been very thoroughly discussed on one previous occasion as well, but it did not lead to concrete action at the time," he said. "This time we will thankfully reach a joint agreement on how to technically execute this."

Kilu noted that beginning next month, banks to sign up wth the system should be implementing instant payments, which are completed between banks in not hours, but just ten seconds.

"But we will talk about that in November," he added.

The banking association aims to increase the share of contactless payments. By 2020, all card terminals in Estonia should be contactless-enabled, as should 50% of bank cards. The association hopes that by 2020, a quarter of all transactions will be paid for via contactless payments.

The association also sees a future for mobile-based contactless or QR-code payments, and wants to promote the use of Smart-ID as a recognised form of authentication, as it is more dynamic and does not require a special SIM card, as does Mobile-ID, for example.

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