Consumers will gain more access to shop on their favourite international websites as most commercial banks switch their debit cards to the EMV (Europay, Mastercard & Visa)-enabled setup.

When consumers want to do a transaction online, they usually use a card that can accept a payment processor like Mastercard or Visa which allows for the transaction to be processed. Prior to late 2019, consumers only had The Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica Limited (BNSJ), FirstCaribbean International Bank (Jamaica) Limited, and First Global Bank Jamaica Limited (FGB) offered Visa debit cards to consumers.

Since then, JMMB Bank (Jamaica) Limited, National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited (NCBJ) and Sagicor Bank Jamaica Limited (SBJ) have introduced EMV cards to the market with the first two banks offering Visa debit cards and SBJ offering Mastercard debit cards. JN Bank Limited will also join the mix later this year when it introduces its Visa debit card to their more than 100,000 clients.

“Yes, we remain on track to introduce our JN Bank Visa debit card during the first quarter of the next financial year, 2024/2025. We will provide more information to the public ahead of the launch of this product,” said JN Bank via e-mail to the Jamaica Observer.

According to the Bank of Jamaica’s (BOJ) data, there were 5,117,196 debit cards in issuance up to June 2023, a figure which is nearly 13 times the 398,318 Jamaican dollar (JMD) credit cards in issuance. A debit card is more readily taken up among the Jamaican population relative to credit cards, which means that the switch by JN Bank from its normal Multilink debit card to a Visa debit card will open up thousands of consumers to e-commerce shopping opportunities. JETS Limited is the operator of the local Multilink network which settles local JMD transactions done through the ABM (automated banking machine) and point of sale (POS) channels.

The introduction of the EMV card will also assist in cutting down the events of fraud that usually occur by the magnetic stripe such as card skimming. JN Bank had to address concerns in January when different customers raised alarms about missing funds from their accounts.

This attempt to cut fraud has also seen Sagicor Bank announce that they will be deactivating the older Multilink magnetic stripe debit cards on February 29 at 1:00 pm. This means that these older cards will no longer be valid for transactions. SBJ introduced its Mastercard debit in late 2022 and has opened its branches on Saturdays in February to give its clients time to collect their new cards. The VM Building Society should be introducing a Visa debit card at a later date which takes place after they introduced Visa credit cards to their clients in November 2022.

While seven out of the eight commercial banks will have EMV-enabled debit cards for their clients, different players in the financial space are still looking to tackle the prepaid debit card space. NCBJ introduced a prepaid Mastercard in April 2021 to allow more segments of the unbanked population access to transact online. GraceKennedy Money Services Limited launched its GKONE mobile application and debit card in 2021 to allow its remittance customers to receive their overseas payments directly to their debit card and be able to transact anywhere. Even JMMB Money Transfer Limited launched its own Visa prepaid card in late 2022 to the public, which will allow its remittance customers to spend their remittances anywhere. There were 39.20 million debit card transactions valued at $1.08 billion in the first six months of 2023, according to BOJ data.

All of these newly introduced prepaid card options come at a time when more firms seek to compete in the payments space. JN Bank and JMMB Bank would have introduced POS services to its merchant customers in 2023. However, JN Bank noted, “Although to date we have only piloted the product, reception to it has been good and very encouraging. We will expand the pilot to additional merchants in April 2024 and formally launch to the wider public by June 2024.”

Although the BOJ introduced Jamaica’s CBDC Jam-Dex, in July 2022, only two digital wallets have been approved. While TFOB (2021) Limited, operators of the Lynk mobile app have over 250,000 users, the JN Pay mobile wallet has not been launched to the public as yet. JN Bank notes that it is still in the pilot stages with its employees and aims to launch it to the public at a later date following testing and review.

“There are no other payment solutions to update on at this time; however, our ONE JN Passport — our app to facilitate easy onboarding and access to products across the JN Financial Group — is being used to support the opening of regular savings accounts in Jamaican, US and Canadian dollars, as well as British pound sterling, and unsecured loan applications. The app is currently available in the Google Play Store and Apple Store and will be formally launched to the public in the first quarter of the next financial year,” JN Bank stated.

The introduction of these different EMV options to the Jamaican market is well timed for the doubling of the duty-free limit to US$100, which is set to take place in April 2024. Mailpac Group Limited Executive Chairman Khary Robinson noted that numerous freight forwarders expect a significant uptick in volume after April. This all comes at a time when Jamaica might leave the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) grey list which currently makes some international merchants hesitant to accept Jamaican cards online.