- RTGS high-value settlements reach J$12.98 trillion in first half
- Electronic payments cross 106 million transactions through June
- POS terminal network grows to 33,595 — up 284 from May
- USD dual-currency cards fall sharply from 45,630 to 37,987
- June POS spending: J$101.76 billion in 7.31 million transactions
- ABM cash withdrawals hold at 5.47 million transactions in June
Jamaica’s payment system delivered robust activity through the first half of 2025, with electronic transactions surpassing 106 million and the POS merchant network expanding steadily — but a striking 17 per cent drop in USD dual-currency card numbers may signal a structural shift in how Jamaicans access foreign-currency spending capability.
Jamaica’s payment infrastructure processed J$12,979.13 billion through the JAMCLEAR Real-Time Gross Settlement system in the first six months of 2025, across 2,492,505 individual transactions, according to data published in the Bank of Jamaica’s Payment System Data Bulletin for June 2025. The cumulative figure represents the total stock of high-value interbank payments settled through the BOJ’s RTGS from January through June, providing the most comprehensive mid-year view yet of Jamaica’s wholesale payment activity in the 2025 cycle.
Deriving the June-only RTGS contribution — by subtracting the January-to-May cumulative total of J$10,908.81 billion from the half-year figure — implies approximately J$2,070 billion in high-value settlements during June alone. That is a meaningful volume for a single month, consistent with the pattern of large corporate, government, and interbank transactions that characterise RTGS activity and that sit largely invisible to retail consumers but underpin the entire financial system’s daily functioning.
Securities Settlement Keeps Pace
The JAMCLEAR Central Securities Depository, through which government bonds, Treasury bills, and other securities instruments are settled, recorded 56,518 transactions through June 2025, with a combined Jamaica dollar value of J$6,783.22 billion and a US dollar equivalent of US$1,569.59 million. The CSD is the operational backbone of Jamaica’s secondary government securities market, and its transaction volumes reflect the appetite of financial institutions, pension funds, and other institutional investors for government paper as both a liquidity management tool and a fixed-income investment.
The US$1.57 billion equivalent in CSD settlements over six months also reflects the importance of foreign-currency denominated government instruments in Jamaica’s debt profile. Cross-currency securities transactions require careful coordination between settlement systems and foreign exchange operations, and the sustained volume through mid-2025 indicates that secondary market activity in these instruments has remained orderly.
Electronic Payments Pass the 106 Million Mark
The metric that most directly captures the everyday payment experience of ordinary Jamaicans — electronic retail and commercial payments processed through the ACH, bill payment, and direct transfer systems — reached 106,444,590 transactions through June 2025, with a total Jamaica dollar value of J$3,138.49 billion. In US dollar terms, an additional 28,989,490 electronic payments were processed with a combined value of US$1,992.09 million over the same period.
Passing 106 million electronic transactions at the halfway mark of the year places Jamaica on a trajectory that, if sustained at even a modestly lower second-half rate, would comfortably produce a full-year total well in excess of 200 million electronic payment events. That would represent a continuation of the multi-year trend towards digital payment adoption that the BOJ has been tracking and actively encouraging through its financial system modernisation agenda.
POS Network Grows; June Card Spending Accelerates
At the end of June 2025, Jamaica’s point-of-sale terminal network stood at 33,595 machines — an increase of 284 terminals compared to the 33,311 recorded at end-May. This continued network expansion reflects sustained merchant investment in card acceptance infrastructure, driven by a combination of consumer preference for electronic payment, bank-supported incentive programmes, and the broader post-pandemic normalisation of cashless transactions across retail, hospitality, and services sectors.
June POS activity reached 7.31 million Jamaica dollar transactions valued at J$101.76 billion, alongside 292,330 US dollar POS transactions worth US$51.51 million. The J$101.76 billion JMD total represents a healthy month of consumer card spending across the island, with the US dollar POS figure reflecting foreign-currency card activity concentrated in tourism, duty-free, and hospitality environments where international visitors account for a significant proportion of spending.
The average JMD POS transaction value in June works out to approximately J$13,920 — a figure that captures a blend of small everyday purchases, fuel station payments, and larger discretionary retail spending. This average is consistent with prior months in the series and suggests no material shift in the spending composition of card transactions.
The USD Dual-Currency Card Anomaly
The most arresting data point in the June 2025 bulletin is not a transaction volume or a value total — it is the stock of USD dual-currency cards in circulation. At end-June 2025, BOJ data shows 37,987 USD dual-currency cards outstanding. This compares with 45,630 at end-May 2025, implying a reduction of 7,643 cards — a decline of approximately 16.7 per cent in a single month.
USD dual-currency cards are debit or credit instruments that allow Jamaican cardholders to transact in both Jamaica dollars and US dollars from a single card, typically maintaining separate currency balances or drawing from a foreign-currency denominated account. They are particularly valued by business travellers, professionals who receive or manage US dollar income, and consumers who make frequent international purchases online. Their reduction in a single month at this scale is unusual and merits scrutiny.
Possible explanations include a bank-initiated product transition — where an issuing institution migrated existing dual-currency cardholders to a new product structure, causing a temporary reporting reclassification. Alternatively, the drop could reflect genuine account closures, card expiries that were not renewed, or a rationalisation of a product that had lower utilisation than anticipated. What is notable is the concentration of the decline in the USD dual-currency category specifically, while JMD debit cards (3,769,261) and JMD credit cards (437,158) showed no comparable disruption. The USD credit card count of 25,146 also appears stable.
Until clarified by additional BOJ data or commercial bank disclosures, the June 2025 dual-currency card count should be interpreted with caution. It could represent a data correction to prior months’ figures, a product sunset by one of the larger issuing banks, or the early stage of a transition towards digital-native foreign currency wallet products that may not be captured under the same classification.
ABM Cash Activity: Resilient Demand for Physical Currency
Despite the continued growth in digital payment channels, demand for cash accessed through ABMs remained firm in June 2025. Jamaica dollar ABM transactions totalled 5.47 million for the month, with total withdrawals of J$98.27 billion — implying an average ABM withdrawal of approximately J$17,960. This average has been broadly consistent throughout the 2025 reporting series, suggesting that the typical ABM user’s cash withdrawal behaviour has not changed materially even as digital alternatives multiply.
US dollar ABM withdrawals in June reached 91,830 transactions worth US$24.23 million, reflecting demand from consumers managing foreign-currency cash needs for travel, international services, and other purposes. The US dollar ABM segment is served by a subset of Jamaica’s 905-strong ABM network that is configured to dispense foreign currency, concentrated primarily in airport locations, major hotels, financial district branches, and upmarket commercial areas.
The coexistence of growing POS card volumes and stable ABM withdrawal levels is a feature observed across many emerging market payment systems: digital adoption does not displace cash on a one-for-one basis but rather adds a parallel layer of payment capability. Jamaicans increasingly use cards for point-of-sale transactions while maintaining cash as a reserve for markets, informal vendors, small services, and contexts where electronic acceptance is unavailable or inconvenient.
Cheque Volumes in Context
Jamaica’s cheque clearing system processed 450,000 cheques in June 2025 with an aggregate value of J$73.14 billion. While the volume of cheque transactions is modest relative to electronic payment counts — representing less than one per cent of the number of electronic transactions — the J$73 billion face value is not trivial. Cheques remain in use for certain commercial, legal, property, and government transactions where parties prefer or require a paper instrument, and their aggregate value reflects large-denomination usage concentrated in relatively few transactions.
The long-run trajectory for cheque usage in Jamaica is one of steady secular decline, as successive generations of businesses and individuals adopt electronic alternatives. However, the pace of that decline is gradual, and cheques are unlikely to disappear entirely from Jamaica’s payment mix within the near term, particularly for property purchases, legal settlements, and certain government disbursements.
Half-Year Scorecard: A Resilient Payment System
Stepping back to assess the first half of 2025 in aggregate, Jamaica’s payment system presents a picture of broad resilience and continued modernisation. RTGS settled nearly J$13 trillion in high-value transactions, CSD processed over US$1.56 billion in securities settlements, electronic payments topped 106 million events, and the POS terminal network grew by hundreds of machines. The overall direction of travel — towards greater electronic payment penetration, broader merchant acceptance, and higher transaction volumes — is consistent and well-established.
The main story requiring follow-up in the second half of 2025 is the USD dual-currency card position. If the June decline proves to be a one-month anomaly — a reporting correction or product transition — the July data should show a normalisation. If it persists or deepens, it would suggest a more structural shift in how Jamaican banks are packaging foreign-currency access products, with implications for consumers who rely on such instruments for international spending and for the overall breadth of the island’s card ecosystem.
For real estate, tourism, and investment observers, the POS expansion and sustained electronic payment volumes provide a constructive backdrop. Business confidence in card payment infrastructure — reflected in merchants’ willingness to continue investing in terminal hardware — is a leading indicator of commercial activity. A network that adds hundreds of terminals per month is one in which merchants expect customer card spending to grow, and that expectation, if validated by continued consumer behaviour, augurs well for commercial activity in the second half of the year.
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