BOJ says Hurricane Melissa slowed uptake of JAM-DEX

 

The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) says Hurricane Melissa placed the brakes on more entities becoming part of the Jamaica Digital Exchange (JAM-DEX), which is the central bank's digital currency.

 

Natalie Haynes, Deputy Governor for Financial Markets & Payments Systems at BOJ, said the JAM-DEX stock has moved from $268 to $270 million due to a new entrant.

 

"That increase in the circulation of JAM-DEX was a new participant entering the space, but they are not fully ready. Remember JAM-DEX has two components: One for us to be able to issue and redeem digital currency with the banks - that works. And they now, to roll out their wallets to the public. So one institution, we issued that additional tool and they are still fine-tuning technical details before they roll out their wallets to the public. So we still only have two operators," she noted. 

 

Mrs. Haynes said two more operators were expected to come on before the end of the year, but that has been delayed by the passage of the hurricane. 

 

In the meantime, BOJ Governor Richard Biles said the country needs to move quickly to using the digital currency to counter the effects of malfunctioning ABMs.

 

"The solution is to go to more digital payment. That is what JAM-DEX is designed to do and what we have been struggling with for years to get done. Jamaica lives on cash too much, and it's bad now, but I can tell you, next year this time it's going to be even worse unless we get off of this diet of cash. And the way to do it is JAM-DEX," he asserted. 

 

"So the entire BOJ is going to be pressing relentlessly to get the POS machines in the banks converted to take JAM-DEX so that we can market Jamdex in a massive way and get more and more Jamaicans to use it," added Mr. Byles.