Review of Estonian leasing market

Estonian economy as well as leasing market showed a stable growth after the War started last year and the COVID crises just easing up. 

In 2022 GDP was declining by 1,3%. Estonian inflation was one of the highest on EU, reaching nearly 20%, but our unemployment rate stayed on moderate 5,7% level.

New leasing business carried out in 2022 by members of our Association was 1,3 billion EUR, growing by 8% compared to 2021.

Total lease portfolio of the members was 3 billion EUR, growing 7% . The main contract type according to the lease portfolio was finance lease by 58%. Operating lease held 41% and other forms of contracts as much as 1%. These figures have been stable for many years.

When observing lease new sales by assets, then machinery- and equipment sector growth was 10%. Financing of the agriculture and fishing sector grew the most by 23%, as well as commodity handling equipment by 16%. If in 2021 medical technology financing increased by 120%, then in 2022 we had 60% decrease. The rest of the machinery and equipment financing remained in the limits of ten percentage point fluctuations.

Road transport vehicle sector grew by 12%, cars and other small vehicle sector by 6%.

Other categories of new sales are of minor importance.

Analyzing equipment leasing in 2022 by type of customers, then all sectors were in growth: Industry, construction by 2%, services private sector by 18%, agriculture, forestry, fishing by 22%, public sector by 9%. Only "others" (incl dwellings) were on decline by 6%.

Primary contract terms show that 60% of the contracts were signed up to 5 years.

Many of our members are also providing factoring services. The balance of the total factoring portfolio was 432 million euros, which is 3.5% less than in 2021, but the turnover was positive by 23%. 

Lease financing still plays significant part in Estonian economy. According to the valuation of the Association and World Leasing Yearbook the annual leasing volume of Estonia, as a percentage of GDP has been one of world highest for the last fifteen years.

The Association has been in cooperation with Baltic collages and together we have launched PanBaltic  Non Registered Assets Database (NRAD) to prevent double financing and to discover fraud not only in Estonia, but also cross checking Latvian and Lithuanian leased asset databases. So all assets financed by our members that are not registered on any other Baltic register are inserted to that database and cross examination is automatically performed. Results are very good and all the partners are satisfied with the outcome. Access is granted also to Tax authorities and Police - Border Guard Office.

 Compiled by Reet Hääl, CEO