MOBILE wallet and payment systems are still lacking on the interoperability side but are winning financial inclusion for the unbanked.

As more electronic payment and wallet systems come on-stream, the question of how easy it will be to use each digital payment method across the platforms of various digital wallet providers is being put to the Bank of Jamaica by founder and CEO of WiPay Caribbean Aldwyn Wayne Jr.

“That requires a bit of BOJ’s interaction, they need to come up with legislation that would allow a wallet to standardise how they communicate,” said Wayne Jr.

He explained that regulators have yet to put the framework in place allowing independent wallets to have a covered language that they should be talking about in order to work together.

“The regulators will need to put out a framework that would say to wallet one, this is how we want you guys to communicate. We want you to use this particular standard and then wallet one designs his wallet to communicate that way, and the same thing with wallet two,” said Wayne Jr.

According to website digipay.guru, cashless payment systems are designed to make cross-border payments easier by facilitating automatic currency conversion, reducing fees, and increasing speed, security, and accessibility. These systems are more convenient, cost-effective, and secure than traditional methods of cross-border payment and can be accessed from anywhere with an Internet connection.

However, without the ability to make cashless payments from one mobile payment app to the next, it could pose a challenge for users with different payment apps.

Kibwe McGann, WiPay Caribbean’s Country Manager for Jamaica, said it’s not that the solution doesn’t exist, but rather the framework hasn’t been developed to make it so.

“At present most of the existing [payment] solutions in the space are closed looped. Lynk only sends to Lynk. WiPay can’t send to Lynk nor does Lynk send to WiPay,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

He further stated that “it would literally require all parties coming up with the protocols to make that happen. So it doesn’t exist at present – without the ecosystem being built out between all parties, then we all end up in a little corner, and the industry itself will never grow,” he added.

Currently, WiPay is bank agnostic, allowing merchants and clients who have personal accounts the ability to process card transactions online from all over the world.

The account allows users to send a click-to-pay invoice that comes with a button to allow a person to input their debit or credit card from any bank internationally for payment, or a QR scan to pay, once the payment is made, it reflects in the WiPay app and users can transfer to their bank accounts.

Lynk, Jamaica’s first digital wallet provider, is also bank agnostic, but is limited only to local banks and only works with NCB for cash deposits or withdrawals. The focus for Lynk is on its ability to serve the unbanked and underbanked, according to John-Matthew Sinclair, chief product officer at Lynk.

“Lynk is not a bank account and you don’t need a bank account to sign up for Lynk. Lynk is for the underbanked and the unbanked. All you need is a TRN, your face and a mobile phone.”

None of these systems work with each other (as various debit cards issued by different banks work at the same ATM), but all are focused on customers’ needs and experience, excluding the need to be able to work together to expand its user ability. Lynk is currently the sole wallet facilitating transactions involving Jamaica’s central bank digital currency (CBDC): JAM-DEX.

“Later this May, we will also be enabling our JAM-DEX payment feature for LynkBiz so customers can scan a unique CBDC QR code and pay with JAM-DEX from any wallet provider,” said Sinclair.

But WiPay CEO Wayne Jr believes interoperability of the digital payment systems could begin with the inclusion of the CBDC into other electronic payment systems as well.

“You have a digital currency wallet, right, but if your barber, your hairdresser, your taxi man, your supermarket doesn’t accept digital currency, then it has no use to you,” said Wayne Jr.

He explained that if the bank doesn’t provide the rails for the movement and the acceptance of that payment, “it really is just nice to have”.

He said WiPay has effectively done that in other Caribbean countries. Through a partnership with New York-based EMTECH – a financial technology company – WiPay is developing a pilot CBDC which will integrate with its regional network for distribution by the Bank of Guyana.

“EMTECH provides central banks with an easier tool to evaluate possible partners of regulators, so you want to get into the market. The regulator has to evaluate your product to make sure it’s going to work fine in your market,” Wayne Jr explained.

In the meantime, most electronic payment systems and digital wallets are more focused on inclusion. WiPay is working on a prepaid MasterCard for the unbanked.

“That card will be able to allow for people that receive payments and they don’t have a bank account, it could just have that the money go straight to their card,” said Wayne Jr. WiPay’s card can be used to withdraw funds at ATMs locally and the card can be used to shop online. Lynk, on the other hand, is working on accepting credit card payments within its interface.

More digital wallets launched this year include MyCash, a digital wallet by Paymaster and NCBpay, which is only available to its Visa credit card customers.

Another wallet set to come on-stream is JNPAY which was slated for release in March but has yet to be released, and other banks are still in the developing stages with their own digital wallets.