KINGSTON, Jamaica –The Bank of Jamaica on Wednesday announced an extension of its temporary waiver for a penalty charge on high-value Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions, citing a need to further support the ongoing transition to a new payments messaging standard.

The central bank initially waived the $5,000 penalty for transactions exceeding the ACH threshold of $1 million from December 15. This waiver has now been formally extended beyond the original December 31 expiry date, with the new end date to be communicated in a subsequent advisory.

The measure was implemented to support deposit-taking institutions that have faced operational challenges in crediting real-time gross settlement (RTGS) payments following the sector-wide migration from the SWIFT MT standard to the ISO 20022 (MX) standard on December 15.

The Bank of Jamaica clarified that the extension applies only to the central bank’s penalty charge. Standard ACH transaction fees applied by financial institutions to their customers remain unchanged and in effect.