Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr. Nigel Clarke on Tuesday (March 8) made the first central bank digital currency (CBDC) transaction using Jamaica’s latest digital wallet, Lynk.

Clarke made the transaction while making his opening contribution to the 2022-2023 Budget Debate in the House of Representatives. 

While address members in the House, Clarke used the app to pay his barber, Paul Mills of PaulBless Cutz, in JAM-DEX, Jamaica’s newly named CBDC designed to be a part of Jamaica’s digital payments architecture to facilitate greater financial inclusion, increase transaction velocity while reducing the cost of banking for the Jamaicans. 

This latest milestone in the fintech space is also in line with Lynk’s mission to revolutionise Jamaica’s financial landscape. 

“Paul came to my house yesterday to give me a haircut prior to this presentation. When he was finished, I realised that I didn’t have the cash to pay, I only had some – Paul is here today and I am going to log into my Lynk account to pay Paul the $500 I owe him in Central Bank Digital Currency or JAM-DEX,” Clarke said as went through the process of making the transaction.

“Done! That is the first public JAM-DEX transaction ever done in Jamaica,” the minister exclaimed as soon as the transaction went through.

In addition to the increased convenience from a more modern payment system, CBDC also increases financial inclusion by making it easier and quicker for the unbanked to access CBDC accounts.

Last year, the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) minted $230 million worth of digital currency and issued $1 million worth to staff and another $5 million worth to the National Commercial Bank (NCB).

“The central bank digital currency creates a foundation for greater financial inclusion and digital commerce, eliminating some of the frictions we have today in terms of payments that are not real-time or 24/7 across financial institutions,” CEO of NCB Financial Group, Patrick Hylton, said during an investors’ briefing last August.

Natalie Haynes, deputy governor, banking & currency operations & financial markets infrastructure at the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) noted that, “as one of the world’s leading central banks on CBDC, Bank of Jamaica has created a launchpad for accelerating the Government’s digital transformation through payment system infrastructure and fintech developments”.

Haynes added: “As a fintech development, Lynk creates that bridge between Jamaica’s core payment systems infrastructure and the public thereby facilitating financial inclusion.”

Lynk will function as a multi-currency wallet allowing users to conduct transactions both in Jamaican dollars and JAM-DEX.

The feature will be available to all ‘Lynkies’, as users are affectionately called, in May.

“Lynk, being Jamaica’s newest digital wallet, is excited to be on the cutting edge of regulatory technology by being the first to integrate the CBDC into our platform,” said Lynk’s Chief Executive Officer Vernon James.

“Our main goal is to ensure that our customers have frictionless access to all payment channels.”

Lynk-to-Lynk transfers will remain free to all users, even transactions using JAM-DEX. With over 120,000 downloads and more than 600 businesses currently using Lynk, users can make payments or send and receive money on their phones, instantly – all day, every day.

Representatives from Lynk and the BOJ will be on Twitter @lynkjamaica for a discussion on their partnership tomorrow (March 10) at 6 pm.