Bank of Jamaica is partnering with local governments to expand CBDC adoption
In a recent update, it was reported that the Bank of Jamaica is set to work with the government to increase the adoption of its central bank’s digital currencyJamDex, as payment method.
Referring to the report on Sunday, Jamaica’s CBDC expansion began this year via a mobile wallet provider, Lynk, and by the end of September, this led to 115,000 subscribers who have completed 146,000 transactions.
However, considering the number of people expected to interact with the financial sector in a country, this number seems relatively low.
Dr. Novelette Panton, Head of Financial Markets Infrastructure Division, Bank of Jamaica, stated at a conference that addressed “Digital Currency,” that bringing more people into the financial system is one of the main reasons for establishing the CBDC, JamDex.
According to the report, surveys show that over 500,000 Jamaicans barely even interact with the local financial sector. It may be because people in Jamaica earn wages in cash and spend them without interacting with financial sector actors.
As a result, the Central Bank of Jamaica will target government payments to social protection programs to achieve significant inclusion and adoption of CBDC.
“When we look at the people we have, the government in every country is the biggest payer,” said Dr. Novelette Panton. She added, “So we go after government payments in that we have welfare payments, social benefits, the payments that are made to school children, payments to people on housing benefit.”
Other plans Panton stated, according to the report on how the Central Bank of Jamaica will further boost JamDex, include educating the public about the difference between JamDex and cryptocurrencies as well as the security of the digital currency.
In addition, the Central Bank of Jamaica will host Christmas work programs in December to encourage individuals to make their payments in CBDCs.
Jamaica’s central bank and mobile wallet provider Lynk are also working together to sign up corner shops and pan-fried chicken vendors to interact with the mobile wallet while making payments with JamDex.
It is worth noting that this news comes months after the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) suggested that the authority must obtain a court order to track CBDC transactions apart from wallet holders and issuers, as CBDC, such new digital currencies, do not have another code that can be tracked.
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