As Jamaica pushes for greater digital inclusion, stakeholders say more needs to be done to ensure small businesses and underserved communities are not left behind.
This call follows the release of a new MasterCard study on the state of digitalization and financial inclusion in Jamaica, which found that, while the country has a strong foundation for digital payments, significant barriers to merchant acceptance remain.
Country Manager of Mastercard, Dalton Falls says the study reveals that only eight per cent of small merchants have point-of-sale systems in Jamaica.
“It requires three key focus. On one hand, we need to make sure that we're bringing low-cost acceptance solutions to the market, and this is where, for example, technologies such as tap-on-phone plays a significant role. It also requires digital onboarding. So again, the technology does exist. So it's important, for example, that as you think about how do we drive financial inclusion, how do you make that small merchants? How do you make it easy for him to get solutions like these?”
He explained that this is “a highly regulated space, so it means that you have to have strong KYCs, but the technology now exists to drive that digital onboarding where you capture the KYC information. The technology also exists that allows you to control and monitor the fraud risk that comes with it, for example. And then of course, contactless plays a significant role there as well.”
The study was conducted in February of this year.
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