Jamaica ABM Network Climbs to 94.1% Operational in January 2026 But System Uptime Remains Below BOJ’s 95% Standard

• National ABM network improves to 94.1% operational and 93.0% uptime in January 2026
• System uptime remains below BOJ’s 95% minimum standard for third consecutive month
• Hurricane Melissa telecommunication outages continue to affect Scotia Bank’s fleet
• Six of eight institutions achieve 100% operational performance in January
• Average recovery time improves sharply to 1.7 hours from December’s 2.1 hours
• KMA delivers 98.4% operational and 96.4% uptime as urban network normalises

Jamaica’s ABM network opened 2026 on an improving trajectory, with operational performance climbing to 94.1% in January — but system-wide uptime of 93.0% remained below the Bank of Jamaica’s 95% minimum compliance standard for the third consecutive month, with Hurricane Melissa’s lingering telecommunications damage still registered in Scotia Bank’s reporting.

The Bank of Jamaica’s ABM Performance Report for January 2026 records 870 total machines across Jamaica’s banking network — a reduction from December’s 889, reflecting the removal from the fleet of machines permanently damaged by Hurricane Melissa — with 819 operational, producing an operational percentage of 94.1% and uptime of 93.0%. Average recovery time improved to 1.7 hours, the sharpest monthly improvement in the current data series, signalling that technician responsiveness and field logistics are returning to pre-storm norms.

Uptime Gap: Still Below BOJ’s 95% Minimum Three Months On

The January 2026 report explicitly states the Bank of Jamaica’s compliance thresholds for the ABM network: a minimum operational percentage of 90% and a minimum uptime requirement of 95%. At 93.0% uptime, the national reading falls 2.0 percentage points below the minimum uptime standard — a gap that has persisted since the hurricane disruption began in October 2025. The operational percentage of 94.1%, by contrast, comfortably exceeds the 90% operational floor.

The persistence of below-minimum uptime — now spanning October, November, December 2025, and January 2026 — represents an extended period of regulatory underperformance for the system as a whole. It is important to note that the BOJ sets these standards as network-level expectations, and individual institutions may be performing above or below the system average. The January data shows that several institutions are individually meeting or exceeding the 95% uptime standard, meaning the national shortfall is concentrated among specific banks and specific regions rather than uniformly distributed across the network.

Hurricane Melissa: Telecom Damage Persists Into 2026

Bank of Nova Scotia remains the most visible carrier of Hurricane Melissa’s institutional legacy. The January 2026 report records that Scotia Bank “advised that recovery from the impact of the passage of Hurricane Melissa continues, with downtime for the month of January impacted by continued telecommunication outages in some areas, as well as completed damage to several machines.” This language — nearly identical to the December 2025 disclosure — confirms that the storm’s telecommunications infrastructure damage in western Jamaica has not been fully resolved three months after Melissa’s passage.

The persistence of telecom outages into January 2026 is significant. Telecommunications restoration in storm-damaged areas typically occurs in phases: power grid restoration first, then major fibre routes, then last-mile connectivity to individual sites including ABM locations. The continued reporting of telecom disruption suggests that some of the most remote or most severely damaged link segments in the western parishes are still undergoing repair — a process that in some cases requires physical infrastructure replacement rather than simply power-cycling existing equipment. For ABMs that are physically intact but unable to communicate with the banking network, the machine registers as a downtime event even though no mechanical fault exists.

Despite this ongoing disruption, Scotia Bank’s January operational percentage reached 100.0% — a result that may seem paradoxical given the storm narrative, but is explained by the BOJ data methodology: machines that have been permanently retired from the fleet are no longer counted in the total, so the operational percentage reflects the proportion of Scotia’s surviving fleet that is functional. The 11+ permanently destroyed machines that were reported in December have been removed from the denominator, allowing the remaining fleet to register as fully operational. Uptime at 96.9% — above the 95% minimum — represents solid performance by the surviving machines.

Six Institutions Achieve 100% Operational Performance

January 2026 saw an unusually strong institutional performance breadth, with six of the eight reporting banks and building societies achieving 100% operational rates. Bank of Nova Scotia, CIBC Caribbean, JN Bank, National Commercial Bank, Sagicor Bank, and Victoria Mutual Building Society all recorded 100.0% operational performance for the month — meaning every machine in each institution’s fleet was available for customer transactions throughout January. This is a marked improvement from the storm-disrupted months of late 2025, when multiple institutions struggled below 90% operational.

Sagicor Bank led the uptime rankings with 99.1% — one of the highest single-institution uptime figures across the entire 2025-2026 series. NCB followed at 97.9%, with CIBC at 96.2% and Scotia at 96.9% — all above the BOJ’s 95% minimum. First Global Bank achieved 94.7% operational and 95.9% uptime, a solid result for an institution that serves a geographically diverse branch network. JMMB posted 99.1% operational and 94.2% uptime — fractionally below the 95% minimum uptime standard but reflecting strong availability for its 106-machine fleet. Victoria Mutual’s 94.7% uptime and JN Bank’s 93.4% uptime were both below the minimum, suggesting these institutions are contributing to the system-level uptime shortfall alongside the Melissa-affected areas.

KMA Consolidates Near-Normal Operations

The Kingston Metropolitan Area continued its recovery to near-normal operations in January, with 316 machines achieving 98.4% operational performance and 96.4% uptime — the latter above the BOJ’s 95% minimum standard. Recovery time of just 0.9 hours in the KMA reflects the density of technical support resources available in the capital, where bank technician teams can respond rapidly to faults without the long-distance travel that rural deployments require.

The other urban region recorded 92.5% operational and 92.5% uptime, while the rural network posted 90.5% operational and 87.2% uptime. The rural network’s 87.2% uptime is the most concerning regional figure — it falls well below the 95% minimum standard and reflects both the residual Melissa impact in western parishes and the structural challenges of maintaining ABM infrastructure in areas where power reliability, connectivity, and technician proximity are all limited relative to the urban centres. The 3.2-hour average rural recovery time — nearly four times the KMA average — quantifies the logistical disadvantage rural service teams face.

Recovery Time: The Sharpest Monthly Improvement in the Series

One of the most positive data points in January’s report is the average recovery time of 1.7 hours — down from 2.1 hours in December and substantially below the disrupted readings of 3+ hours that characterised the November crisis. Recovery time measures how quickly a non-operational machine is restored to service after a fault is logged: a lower figure indicates faster technician response, more efficient spare-parts logistics, and better fault diagnosis. The 1.7-hour January average is, in many respects, the strongest signal in the report that the Melissa recovery phase is moving toward completion at the operational level, even if telecom infrastructure in some areas remains partially repaired.

The 0.9-hour KMA recovery time is exceptional — a benchmark that reflects what high-quality ABM fleet management looks like when infrastructure and resource constraints are minimised. At the other end of the spectrum, the 3.2-hour rural average, while improved, remains a meaningful gap for customers in parishes where the nearest alternative machine may be an hour’s drive away. Closing that gap — through investment in remote diagnostics, pre-positioned spare parts, and local technician capacity — is one of the structural improvement opportunities that the Melissa period has exposed most clearly.

What January’s Data Signals for Financial Access in 2026

The January 2026 ABM data presents a network in the final stages of a major recovery arc, with positive momentum across most indicators but persistent underperformance on the uptime metric that matters most for daily customer experience. A machine that is technically deployed but unavailable for 7% of the month represents significant lost access for the customers who depend on it — particularly in communities with only one or two machines serving the surrounding population.

For Jamaica’s housing and real estate market, reliable ABM access matters more than the headline figures suggest. Real estate transactions — deposit payments, legal fees, property surveys, and related expenditures — often involve cash withdrawals at critical moments. Communities where ABM uptime is unreliable face not just inconvenience but genuine disruption to the financial workflows that underpin property transactions. The January 2026 reading suggests that the ABM network is substantially back to its pre-Melissa capabilities in most of Jamaica, with the remaining underperformance concentrated in the western parishes where telecoms restoration is still completing.

The key question for the February and March 2026 readings will be whether the system uptime crosses back above 95% as the remaining Melissa-related disruptions are resolved and technician teams return to normal maintenance rhythms. If the 93.0% January reading represents the tail-end of the storm’s impact rather than a new structural floor, the prognosis for Jamaica’s ABM network in 2026 is positive. The early 2026 data will provide the answer.

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