I will clarify this ruling a bit.
The ruling was about brokerage fees. It was determined that a bitcoin exchange does not have to pay VAT on the brokerage fees it receives, as bitcoins were considered a payment instrument, in the context of value added taxation. Hence, such brokerage fees were fees for providing financial intermediation services as defined by the Finnish law and VAT exempt by the same law, and also VAT exempt according to a EU council directive. "Member States shall exempt the following transactions: [...] transactions, including negotiation, concerning deposit and current accounts, payments, transfers, debts, cheques and other negotiable instruments, but excluding debt collection". The directive is available online,
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2006:347:0001:0118:en:PDF (article 135, 1d).
Nothing was said about banking except in the article quoted in this thread. But yes, it did in this case, recognize bitcoins as a payment instrument. But the Finnish tax office has already, before this, published a guide on the taxation of what it calls "virtual currencies", making a distinction between mining income and capital gains from the rise in bitcoin's value. So they are pretty aware of Bitcoin.