SEB: Is the fear subsiding? The trend in the creation of new companies has experienced a strong increase in the past week

While at the beginning of the year, 450 private or public limited companies were registered every week in Estonia, in the first weeks of the emergency situation, this decreased by a third to 300. In the third week of the emergency situation, 40% fewer companies were established than usual, and by Easter, the creation of new companies had decreased by over 50%, to 200. The past week, however, brought along an upturn, when the number of companies established again surpassed 350.

“The past weeks have significantly changed the daily lives of a large part of Estonians. Remote working from home and social isolation has significantly affected turnover figures in many sectors, and the insecurity caused by the emergency situation also dealt a blow to the establishment of new companies,” stated SEB’s Head of Retail Banking Ainar Leppänen. “Even though the activity of establishing companies has not fully recovered, the previous week did show signs of recovery. In terms of counties, Tartu County cropped up in particular – 30% more companies have been registered there, compared to the beginning of the year. These numbers show that even though regular economic activity is significantly disturbed, the entrepreneurship, courage and ingenuity of people has not gone anywhere, and even today, steps are being taken to start realising business ideas that were generated before or during the crisis. This is only welcome,” Leppänen added.

As is characteristic of an IT-state, the increase of establishing new companies is driven by the information and communication technology sector, the proportion of which was 14 per cent of all companies established, but it has now already grown to 21 per cent. “In the past week alone, 75 new IT companies were established, which is the highest number since the beginning of this year,” said Ainar Leppänen. While the establishment of trade companies has decreased by 13 per cent as a whole, 17 per cent more postal and internet retail trade companies were established in the past week, compared to the beginning of the year.

The process of establishing companies has also changed from the point of view of the bank. “A natural part of establishing a company is opening a bank account, and even though SEB has allowed corporate customer accounts to be opened via video call for three years already, up until now, an average of 15 per cent of customers used this opportunity. Right now, the trend is the opposite: communicating with the bank via video call has tripled in the past few weeks, and only 15 per cent of new customers wish to visit the office in person,” Ainar Leppänen explained.

Additional info:

Evelin Allas
Communications Manager
Marketing and Communications Division
SEB Pank

Phone: +372-665-5649
Mobile: +371-511-1718
Address: Tornimäe 2, 15010 Tallinn
E-mail: evelin.allas@seb.ee