Bank of Latvia spokesman Jānis Silakalns said that the number of instant payments has increased steeply since October 2019 when Swedbank started offering instant payments. At present, instant payments are available for more than 90% of bank customers in Latvia. Instant payments are available to customers of Swedbank, Citadele, and SEB Banka.
“The Baltic states, especially Latvia, are leading countries in the euro area in introducing instant payments. In the nearest time banks will offer their customers to make instant payments by just using their mobile phone number,” said Silakalns.
The introduction of this service has been seen as so important as to make zibmaksājums, the Latvian equivalent of 'flash payment', the best word of 2018.
