KINGSTON, Jamaica — The average balance held in a deposit account in one of Jamaica’s 11 Deposit-Taking Institutions (DTIs) at December 31, 2024, was $343 150.

The information is contained in the 2024 edition of the Economic and Social Survey Jamaica (ESSJ), a publication of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ).

According to the survey, as at the end of December 2024, the balance in the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) was $47.5 billion, an increase of 15.2 per cent compared with December 2023. The DIF balance represented 8.1 per cent of the total estimated insured deposits in the banking system, relative to the Jamaica Deposit Insurance Corporation’s (JDIC) target reserve ratio of 8.0 — 10.0 per cent. This represents an increase of 0.7 percentage points compared with December 2023, the survey found.

As part of the Financial System Safety Net, the JDIC operates with the principal objective of managing the DIS to protect depositors from loss of their insured deposits up to a prescribed coverage limit, in the event their DTI is determined to be non-viable. This is in keeping with the Deposit Insurance Act (1998).

The PIOJ notes that membership in the DIS is mandatory for all DTIs regulated by the Bank of Jamaica and remained unchanged at 11 institutions, comprising eight commercial banks, two building societies, and one merchant bank. Insured deposits are protected up to $1.2 million (the current prescribed coverage limit) per depositor, per ownership category, per DTI.

“At this coverage limit, 96.5 per cent of the total number of deposit accounts in the banking system is covered,” said the PIOJ.

Meanwhile, at the end of 2024, non-performing loans (NPLs) increased by 5.3 per cent in nominal terms to $37.4 billion. This was largely due to a 14.1 per cent nominal increase to $27.7 billion in default on payments by individuals and households. In contrast, NPLs to overseas residents declined by 18.8 per cent in nominal terms to $4.4 billion.

“The quality of the loan portfolio to the goods producing and the services industries improved with respective nominal declines in NPLs of 12.8 per cent to $1.2 billion and 9.3 per cent to $4.0 billion,” said the PIOJ. Within the goods producing industry, manufacturing recorded the largest nominal decline at 49.3 per cent, followed by mining at 30.1 per cent.

The main contributor to the decline in the services industry was a $0.5 billion decrease in transport, storage and communication to $0.1 billion.

NPLs as a share of total loans was 2.5 per cent, the same share as at the end of December 2023.