exactly, that's what i thought. must be one of those: it was always done that way, or maybe just, the banks bought machines to print the cards from the US or where they still do that (do they actually?) or simply those machines were cheaper, or who cares, its not like there is a downside to embossing the numbers. it could also be estonians who fled to the US in the previous century returning and bringing back their idea of how it should be done.

i was visiting the baltics in the early 90s and i head that people were desperate to get anything from the west after being cut of for so long.