The gaping gap between promise and reality is a deficit that has existed since time immemorial. A case in point is the adoption of technology in the local banking system. It was sold as a vastly more efficient alternative to the laborious process of physically going into a bank to conduct business. That promise is rapidly becoming a fleeting illusion.

A more efficient alternative must mean that most customers can conduct banking transitions faster and more cheaply. Without those basics, what prevails is a Mickey Mouse system or a “joke thing” (mockery), as we say in the streets.

Think about these questions:

* Has the adoption of more technology in the local banking system merely increased revenue streams for the banks?

* Is there a positive relationship between the continual rise in after-tax profits in the banking sector and the quality of service delivered to customers in general?

* Is the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) — which, among other things, is the chief supervisor of banks — doing a good job in overseeing the delivery of consistent, high-quality service to customers?

* Do banks see us, their valued customers, as their raison d’être?

WE DESERVE BETTER!

In my The Agenda column of December 14, 2025, entitled “Lies, garbage, and utilities’, I noted, among other things: “For obvious reasons, some days before the hurricane landed I tried to access cash from an automated teller machine (ATM) belonging to one of the major banks. The first machine was out of service. Three others in the Liguanea area were out of service too. I journeyed up to The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus. That is where I found a machine from which I was able to get cash. It is not an exaggeration to say the mentioned experience is commonplace all over Jamaica.”

Banks in Jamaica are making billions of dollars in profits. Every year the profits of the banks skyrocket. I don’t envy them, because people are in business to make money. I get that. But what of the comfort of the customers who enable these banks to make the billions?

Doing business with these banks seems tantamount to punishment. Sometimes I really feel that way. Contrary to what some people think, when you put your money in a bank you are giving the bank a loan. Surely it is not unreasonable to have access at any time.

The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) needs to do its job. If the BOJ continues to fall down on the job, what do we do? Hire Mickey Mouse? When we have to visit several machines to get access to our funds there is a huge cost to us in terms of time and money. Insofar as I know, no penalty is imposed on the banks when customers cannot access funds from ATMs in a timely manner.

Bank fees are almost always going up. But services offered by the banks are not keeping abreast? Something is very wrong here. But, as rural folks say, “Time is longer than rope.” I agree.

Hint, hint, for decades a certain telephone company gave us very shoddy service. It went under fast when real competition hit it in the pocket. Having ATMs that work properly is a low-hanging fruit.

Since that column, almost five months ago, I have got scores of reactions which confirm that many customers are having similarly costly experiences accessing the services being offered by local banks.

Recently, Minister of Finance and the Public Service Fayval Williams announced that a committee had been set up to search for a new governor of BOJ to succeed Richard Byles. On April 27, 2026, this newspaper listed the names and relevant work experience of the four-member committee. They are:

1) Calvin McDonald, an eminent Jamaican with 29 years as a staff economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and who, after several senior appointments, retired in 2021 as deputy secretary of the IMF;

2) Ambassador Kathryn Phipps, attorney-at-law who has practised law in Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, The Bahamas, and Grenada;

3) Professor Delroy Hunter, the Serge Bonanni professor of international finance at the University of South Florida and a former Commonwealth scholar. He has published peer-reviewed papers in several prestigious business journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics; and

4) Minna Israel, an accomplished financial services professional with extensive senior executive and board of director experience in leading strategic transformation at large and complex organisations. She served as special advisor to the vice-chancellor on resource development at The University of the West Indies.

These are indeed eminent and qualified Jamaicans. However, I wonder how many of these outstanding individuals regularly visit ATMs and face the heartache and high costs associated with machine-hopping in order to access their own money.

I wonder how many of these prominent individuals are truly feeling the severe impact of high banking fees. When a minimum wage earner, for example, has to pay $50 to access his/her meagre wages from an ATM, that reality is not negligible. Assuming that same minimum wage earner uses that bank’s ATM once per week, he/she loses $200 per month from an already meagre wage. Many people, of course, cannot understand this reality. A Jamaican who regularly uses ATMs and feels the very severe pinch of skyrocketing bank fees should have been included on the mentioned committee, I believe. There are thousands of Jamaicans to choose from.

WHY SO LONG?

Why does it take banks an average of three to five business days — and sometimes longer — to clear a cheque?

The promise of greater technological inputs into the local banking system should have made this process much faster. I don’t see that this is the reality.

Incidentally, I am not talking about cheques for a million dollars. Some employers and businesses continue to pay for goods and services with cheques. Many service providers, minimum wage earners included, are operating on razor-thin cash flows.

Having to wait three to five business days to get the “likkle buttah” (money), as rural folks term it, can often mean the difference between life and death, literally.

Then there is the tardy business of identity fraud.

Some readers have, doubtless, endured the severely financially costly and emotionally traumatic experience of watching their hard-earned savings simply disappear from their bank account(s). This recently happened to a friend of mine. She immediately contacted her bank to freeze all her accounts and then reached out to the bank’s fraud department. The fraud occurred since last December. To date, the bank claims it is still “investigating”.

Think for a moment about the psychological and financial devastation this causes for ordinary Jamaicans who rely on a single savings account to service critical obligations such as rent or mortgage payments, food, transportation, school fees, and other basic needs.

Many Jamaicans do not have the safety net of borrowing from relatives or friends. Local loan sharks, the first cousins of Shylock (to think of William Shakespeare), are quick to exact more than their pound of flesh from those who borrow and cannot repay. The consequences — missed payments, mounting debt, anxiety, humiliation, and even loss of shelter — can be profound and long-lasting.

To add insult to injury — a saying well known to every Jamaican — the banks often make the already costly and emotionally traumatic experience of fraud even more painful for victims. My friend was asked to visit her branch. She said she was subjected to a series of highly intrusive and invasive questions. She said the line of questioning clearly assumed that she had either stolen her own money or was involved in fraud through an accomplice.

Frustrated, she was moved to tell the interviewer some choice words which cannot be repeated here. It was only at that point, she said, that the interviewer seemed to realise she would not remain silent while he fired off salvos of disrespect.

One shudders to think what happens emotionally and psychologically to the dozens of Jamaicans who lack the verbal ammunition or the courage to push back against someone sitting behind a desk in a jacket and tie, who intimates or outright accuses them of defrauding the bank.

Well-thinking Jamaicans place a high premium on the preservation of our good name and reputation. Banks would do well to understand and respect this reality.

GAPING CONTRACTIONS

As I see it, the logic behind bank investigations — which tend to drag on interminably when a customer is defrauded — starts with a built-in default assumption that the customer is the point of failure. The idea that “the house always wins” is readily accepted when gamblers visit a casino or play games of chance like the lottery. Hard-working Jamaicans, however, reject this logic when it comes to their hard-earned savings.

The banking system needs to stop making customers the victims. That default position is rapidly destroying confidence in the system. There was a time in Jamaica when many people felt their money was safer under their mattresses. Given the very high levels of fraud in the banking system, it is not far-fetched to forecast that some Jamaicans may soon be seriously considering that option again — unless the apparent structural bias in fraud investigations is addressed.

As I see it, banks rely heavily on the narrative that they have and are using state-of-the-art technology to protect their customers. However, there is very strong academic work — including from the late Professor Ross Anderson, a renowned expert in security engineering at Cambridge University — that shows chip-and-PIN systems are not infallible, contrary to what some in the banking system would have us believe.

Professor Anderson argued, for example, that “the EMV (chip and PIN) payment system is not as reliable as generally believed”. His research highlighted that, rather than eliminating fraud, the system merely shifted its methods, creating new vulnerabilities and enabling sophisticated attacks.

Consider this too: ‘Chip and pin ‘weakness’ exposed by Cambridge researchers’ or ‘A vulnerability in the widely used chip and pin payment system has been exposed by Cambridge University researchers’.

Cards were found to be open to a form of cloning, despite past assurances from banks that chip and pin could not be compromised. Poor implementation of cryptography methods were behind the flaw, researchers said. They accused some banks of “systematically” suppressing information about the vulnerabilities. (British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), September 11, 2012)

Simply put, devices exist that can trick terminals into accepting transactions without a valid pin.

HIGHER BANK FEES, AHOY!

Here is another glaring contradiction: While the quality of banking services continues to decline, the profit margins of banks continue to skyrocket. This has been the reality for donkey’s years in Jamaica.

Think on this: ‘Banks jack up fees as profits climb…BOJ pushing for ease of access’. The Jamaica Observer item of April 26, 2026 delivered these and related details, “Jamaicans are being asked to pay more to move, withdraw, and manage their own money as commercial banks raise fees across the financial system, even as the sector posts sharply higher profits.

“According to the Bank of Jamaica’s (BOJ) 2025 annual report, pre-tax profits for deposit-taking institutions (DTIs) grew 32 per cent from $39.7 billion in 2024 to $52.6 billion in 2025. The higher earnings were driven by operating income rising 7.6 per cent, outpacing the 2.5 per cent increase in operating expenses.

“In a context where the growth in pre-tax profits outpaced growth in operating income, the profit margin for the system increased to 16.2 per cent in 2025 from 11.3 per cent in 2024. Concurrently, the return on equity increased to 14.4 per cent from 11.3 per cent in 2024,” the BOJ stated in its annual report. Even as profits rise sharply, banks have been increasing fees as operating costs are expected to climb this year.”

“Digital banking transaction costs should be lowered,” Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness said recently during the launch of the World Bank report on digital financial inclusion and transformation in Jamaica. It is time to overcome the hurdles of resistance and enact tighter guard rails through legislation and regulations that properly protect customers — the very people who keep the doors of the banking system open. We are getting a very raw deal.

As for the criminals using every kind of device to steal customers’ savings, I pray you get your comeuppance soon, real soon, in fact.

Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.

Garfield Higgins

Bank of Jamaica headquarters.

Customers drive around town centres in search of working ATMs..

Finance Minister Fayval Williams in Parliament recently (Photo: Naphtali Junior)

Bank of Jamaica Governor Richard Byles.