THE Bank of Jamaica’s (BOJ’s) central bank digital currency (CBDC) now has a name. This follows the completion of the competition to find a name, logo, tagline and image for Jamaica’s CBDC.

The CBDC will be called Jamaica Digital Exchange —JAM-DEX for short — with the tagline, “No cash, no problem!”

In a press release the BOJ said, “the judges agreed that we wanted a name that is easily and preferably instantly recognised internationally as uniquely Jamaican, that speaks to Brand Jamaica and the Jamaican vibe. There is hardly any word, term, or expression that is more quintessentially Jamaican than Jamaica itself.”

The release further stated that, “the secondary consideration to complete the puzzle was that the name has to signify not just money, but digital money. The full name, Jamaica Digital Exchange, took care of that and the finishing touch was the visual reinforcement of running dollar signs through the ‘D’ in DEX.”

With regards to the winning tagline, the BOJ noted that, “’No Problem’ is a phrase that instantly evokes Jamaica, and, moreover, speaks to exactly the mood we want consumers and businesses to have when they are using JAM-DEX. ‘No cash, no problem’ simply but explicitly speaks to the ease and worry-free convenience of using JAM-DEX as a substitute for cash.”

For winning both prizes in the name and tagline competition, Ashley Payne is the recipient of a total of $600,000 ($350,000 for the name and $250,000 for the tagline) in regular currency, plus a combined total of $50,000 in CBDC.

The winning logo utilises the very distinctive outline of Jamaica’s national fruit and national dish key ingredient, the ackee.

Gerrard Harvey walked away with the prizes of $350,000 in regular currency and $25,000 in CBDC for conceptualising and designing the logo.

In commenting on the logo, BOJ said, “Bank of Jamaica is known for not using ordinary logos (who else has a crocodile in watchdog mode as their official logo?), and so we had a proud tradition to maintain. We sought something that matched the authentic ‘Jamaican-nes’ of the name and tagline while being simultaneously simple and distinctively bold as an easily recognisable visual element.”

“In terms of not only the bold and distinctive elegant simplicity, but also the symmetry compatible with an interconnected digital world, we found the 2D visual representation of Jamaica’s proud national fruit as irresistible as a Sunday morning plate of ackee and saltfish. And, after all, speaking to the experience we want to create for users of JAM-DEX, one of the many ways to describe feeling good is to say, ‘I am in my ackee!’ or in Jamaican, ‘Mi inna mi ackee!’,” the BOJ realease continued.

Both winners collected their prizes in a small ceremony at BOJ in August 2021. No winners were found for the representative image category, so that design was completed in-house by BOJ’s graphic arts unit.

Jamaica’s JAM-DEX is now among a list of other named CBDCs including: Bahamas’ Sand Dollar, Eastern Caribbean’s DCash and Nigeria’s e-Naira.

The judges reviewed over 100 entries in each category. The judging panel panel was led by Natalie Haynes, BOJ deputy governor in charge of banking, currency, and financial markets infrastructure. Other members of the panel were then BOJ Communications Director Tony Morrison; BOJ Senior Graphic Artist Tashna Bulli; project director in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport (and former BOJ employee), Lenford Salmon; and the head of Department, Visual Communication, Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, Shauna Gaye Murray-Coke.