The Decree requires that the four largest banks in Estonia restore their normal services to 70% of their normal operational level within 12 hours in the event of an emergency. How the banks restore their services is up to them, but they must describe their recovery plan to Eesti Pank, who then passes the information on to the Ministry of the Interior. As I understand it, the purpose of the Emergency Act is to see that vital services are restored in the event of an emergency. It is not intended to cover cases where some  BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  people do not have day to day access to some important services. Neither is it intended for the purpose of guiding trends in urbanisation and marginalisation. That is an issue for regional policy, not one that requires solving under emergency powers. Regional policy lies within the domain of the Riigikogu, the government and local authorities. That said, cash circulation is an issue of importance for Eesti Pank, and we wish to be fully engaged in setting policy for cash circulation. This brings me on to the second question in the interpellation, and the position of Eesti Pank on the accessibility of cash and payment services across Estonia. Eesti Pank’s goals for cash are to supply the commercial banks with sufficient cash resources and to ensure the quality of the cash.
Swedbank has released detailed data to explain why they are closing branches, and they show that the branches being closed were used by only 13% of the clients registered there prior to closure, and that the number of cash transactions in those branches has halved in five years. The larger commercial banks in Estonia now provide services more efficiently, and one consequence has been the closure of branches and cash machines in rural areas. A comparison with Sweden can be useful here, as that is where the parent banks of our largest banks are based. At the end of 2013 there were 1655 bank branches in Sweden, and a little over half of them were cash-free, which is more than twice the proportion in Estonia, where only 23% are cash-free. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  At the start of June I wrote to the leaders of the local government in Läänemaa that Eesti Pank finds that having a single network of cash machines for all the banks would not improve access to banking services in rural areas. This is because it would not be possible for any commercial bank to differentiate its services from those of other banks by offering higher quality if there were a single network. Furthermore, a single network dilutes the responsibility of each individual bank, making it harder for clients or the public to affect the decisions taken by the banks.