Jamaica’s largest bank casts doubt on CBDC

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Jamaica’s National Commercial Bank (NCB), the only lender in the country currently offering a central bank digital currency (CBDC) wallet, says that its clients have been disinterested in the digital currency.

Jamaica launched the JAM-DEX CBDC in late 2021 and made it fully available to the public the following year. The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) relies on an intermediate system in which commercial lenders offer CBDC services to the public.

Three years after its launch, Jamaica’s largest lender, NCB, is the only bank that offers a CBDC wallet to Jamaicans, and it’s now questioning the feasibility of one of the world’s pioneer digital currencies.

While announcing the bank’s financial results recently, CEO Bruce Bowen revealed that its mobile app, Lynk, has recorded high adoption rates, but its clients have not been keen on JAM-DEX. He added, “it is simpler for people to use Lynk today without converting to CBDC.”

“And the question that certainly we’ve raised, and there is a dialogue going on, is it worth putting a lot of effort into eliminating that friction to use CBDC? Or as an industry and a society, are we better off putting that investment into just building the ecosystem?”

Bowen also criticized other local banks for not offering CBDC wallets. The closest is the Jamaica National Bank (JN Bank), which was onboarded as the second wallet provider in January 2023. Since then, this wallet has been in development in the central bank’s regulatory sandbox, with no indication of a launch date.

The slow rollout reflects the lack of adoption for the second CBDC in the Caribbean after the Bahamas’ Sand Dollar.

At launch, the central bank made financial inclusion the biggest goal for the digital currency. However, according to the bank’s financial inclusion report earlier this year, over 70% of the population is banked.

The BOJ has attempted to spark adoption to no avail. Earlier this year, it pledged to invest millions to upgrade 20% of the country’s Point-of-Sale (PoS) equipment, enabling it to handle CBDC transactions. Other measures, such as launching a CBDC-powered digital marketplace, have also failed to raise the CBDC’s appeal.

The Bahamas, the only other Caribbean nation with a CBDC, hasn’t fared any better. In July, the country’s central bank governor revealed that there are plans to force commercial lenders “to provide their clients with access to the central bank digital currency.”

Watch: CBDCs are more than just digital money