Estonia's Ministry of Finance outlined a new set of steps to curb financial fraud and is drafting legislation that would strengthen banks’ ability to intervene before scam-related payments are completed. The update comes as losses from fraud continue to rise, with Estonian people losing nearly EUR 29 million in 2025, almost twice the year before. The draft bill would give credit institutions a clearer legal basis to exchange information linked to suspected fraud with other banks and with the police and CERT-EE, and would clarify and reinforce banks’ right to temporarily halt payments or refuse execution where there is a justified suspicion of fraud. In parallel, the ministry is preparing a nationwide awareness campaign and plans to launch a public procurement to implement it. The Estonian Banking Association is developing fraud-prevention good practice, including a proposed “cooling-off pause” that would delay unusual, high-risk payments to help identify scams. Telecom operators are also part of the approach, with Estonia’s three largest providers having blocked spoofed-number scam calls since November 2025 and reporting that tens of millions of attempted scam calls were prevented in 2025. The ministry positioned the measures as building national capability ahead of a new European Union payments services regulation approved in December 2025 that is expected to apply from 2028, without giving a timeline for finalising the Estonian legislation.

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