Governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) Richard Byles says the central bank is “determined” and will continue to ride out challenges that come with being a first-mover in the digital currency space despite the slow take-up of the central bank digital currency (CBDC), Jam-Dex, so far.

The circulation of Jam-Dex remains fixed at $257 million more than a year after the minting of Jamaica’s first batch of the currency due to what the BOJ says is the slow roll-out of mobile wallets by commercial banks and adjustments needed in the point-of-sale systems to support adoption of the currency.

“Being one of the first in the world has its unique challenges. What we are finding in the roll-out is that as we address an issue and move ahead, another one pops up. I guess that’s what you get for being amongst the first; you don’t have a road map set out by others, but we are determined,” Byles said.

He was speaking at the BOJ’s quarterly monetary policy report press conference held on Wednesday.

“When you look at all of the cash problems and complaints, fundamentally, digitising is the only solution. All those issues go away with digital transactions, credit cards, debit cards, wallets, CBDC, that’s what we want in this country. The use of cash is really quite high and creates problems that are intractable. People are under threat because of the whole cash security issues,” he continued.

National Commercial Bank Jamaica (NCB) was the only bank to participate in the BOJ’s pilot test of digital currency through its NCB
Lynk wallet and the only bank said to be able to facilitate Jam-Dex transactions for now. JN Bank was expected to follow suit shortly after but is yet to launch its own
JN Pay digital wallet.

Two other banks, JMMB Bank and First Global Bank also stated their intention to incorporate CBDC-related services in their businesses but have not stated a timeline for roll-out.

“The take-up is still lower than what we desire at this time. The main reason is merchant adoption. Most of the larger merchants would prefer if Jam-Dex payments go through a single point-of-sale machine, so what we are doing is testing a solution in the sandbox for the use of a dynamic QR code.

“It’s really about the customer experience, they don’t want another device, they want the same machine that takes the debit and credit card,” deputy governor, banking, currency operations and payment system at the BOJ, Natalie Haynes, said.

In the meantime, she said that two more banks are expected to join NCB in the acceptance of Jam-Dex transactions by the middle of this year.

At last count, the NCB platform was said to have over 200,000 ‘Lynkies’, or users, who can conduct peer-to-peer transfers and digital payments at over 4,000 micro merchants, predominantly in the food and beverage, fashion, and consumer goods categories.