Latvian banks see boom in e-banking service use in 2002 [06 Feb 2003]

Latvian banks last year saw a boom in the use of electronic banking services, as the number of people using Internet, telephone and mobile banking services grew sharply.

A spokesman for Hansabanka told BNS that the number of Internet banking users surged by 126% in 2002 to 167 700, the number of Mobile Bank (offering services in SMS format) users grew nearly fourfold to 58 400 and Telephone Bank users increased by 130% to 155 000.

Latvijas Unibanka reported 34% growth in users of Internet banking services to 74 900 and a 31% growth of telephone banking users to 4 800 in 2002.

Latvijas Krajbanka spokesman said last year 20 200 new clients had started using its Internet banking service "Online banka", mostly as a result of a promotion campaign in the third quarter of the year. This influx of clients accounted for 32.4% of annual "Online banka" sales. Telephone banking services at Latvijas Krajbanka grew by 113% or 8 700 users in 2002, and since last May the bank also started offering Mobile Bank services, which are now used by 2 500 clients.

Parex Bank spokesman told BNS that the bank's Internet banking service, launched in late 2001, was now being used by 10 000 clients.

Latvijas Hipoteku un Zemes Banka or Mortgage Bank only launched its Internet banking service in September 2002 but at the end of the year it was being used by 1 600 clients.

The Latvian branch of Nordea Bank Finland Plc said that the bank also offered an Internet banking service, used by 3.3 million clients all over the world, and that this figure will probably grow to 3.7 million this year. However, there were no separate statistics on Internet banking taking place through the Latvian branch.

BNS http://terminal.bns.lv/

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