NCB’s CBDC wallet set for November roll-out after tests

National Commercial Bank Jamaica Limited, NCB, has set November as the date for the public roll-out of its digital currency wallet to retail the CBDC, which is backed as legal tender by the Bank of Jamaica.

The public roll-out will follow tests within the bank and with select account holders, starting in September, when it is due to be issued with the currency from $230 million CBDCs already minted by the central bank as part of its inaugural issue of the digital form of money.

While non-account holders will get the opportunity to bank and make payments with various formal and informal merchants one month before the end of the ongoing central bank pilot, which, to date, involves only NCB, the bank says its account holders will have the option of starting to use the e-currency as part of a broader pilot by NCB in October, following the internal pilot and testing during September.

The internal pilot is expected to involve staff using the digital currency. Merchants who have signed up to honour and themselves use the CBDC as part of the September and October pilots or the later roll-out, have not been identified by the bank.

“The NCB team, led by Ramon Lewis, chief information officer, is currently working with an expert team of local and international partners to ensure that the pilot phase being conducted with BOJ is done effectively and efficiently, using best-in-class technologies and support,” NCB said in response to questions from the Financial Gleaner.

The bank declined to name the partners it referenced as collaborating with on the development of the CBDC retail payment wallet. It also would not disclose the precise payment platform to be used. However, the BOJ had said earlier that NCB was being issued with the digital currency as it was the only approved payment provider who had applied to retail the CBDC and has already paid and signed up to utilise the secure CBDC network of eCurrency Mint Limited, the Irish technology firm contracted by the central bank to provide the backbone and networking services to support the operation of the digital currency.

“CBDC users will be able to transfer the digital tender to other users on the NCB platform, cash in and cash out their digital funds for physical currency. In addition to anticipating the benefits of greater financial inclusion and safe, efficient digital payments for customers, NCB looks forward to future partnerships with other local financial institutions to allow interbank transfers and more,” the commercial bank added in its emailed response provided through Marion Carter, manager for brand and crisis communication at NCB Financial Group.

Carter also declined to confirm information in the marketplace that NCB’s CBDC product will be marketed through a subsidiary of the commercial bank and not necessarily under the bank’s name, although utilising the NCB commercial banking licence and wallet provider authorisation.

NCB, Jamaica’s largest commercial bank, is first out the blocks in the retailing of the CBDC under the BOJ’s pilot, although BOJ’s Deputy Governor for Banking and Currency Operations and Financial Markets, Natalie Haynes, told the Financial Gleaner recently that other applications are before the central bank for consideration and others are expected during the pilot, which runs to December.

Jamaica’s CBDC, which is yet to be named, is the third to be launched in the Caribbean, coming on the heels of the Sand Dollar issued by The Bahamas, and DCash issued earlier this year by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.

The digital currency is a policy mandate from the Jamaican government, with Minister of Finance Dr Nigel Clarke being publicly upbeat about its progress.

“It was in September 2020 that we gave the BOJ the unequivocal mandate to get this done – develop the CBDC as a means of using technology as a ladder of development,” Clarke said earlier this month.

“It shows that as a government, we are serious about what we say we are going to do. This move is a conscious policy choice of the government. CBDC is a brave new world and there are lots of possibilities in the future,” he said.

Legislative amendments making the CBDC legal tender and establishing BOJ as the sole authorised issuer of the digital currency are outstanding, but, according to the government’s stated timetable, are expected to be brought to Parliament and enacted before the end of the current fiscal year in March 2022, at which time the CBDC is expected to be fully implemented.

huntley.medley@gleanerjm.com