As of September, there were 899 Automated Banking Machines (ABMs) installed across the country, up from 871 at the end of September 2023.

Deputy Governor with responsibility for the Financial Institutions Supervisory Division at the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), Dr Jide Lewis, made the disclosure during a Standing Finance Committee Meeting at Gordon House on December 10.

He said the installation of the 28 additional machines is one of the outcomes of the service-level standards for ABMs implemented by the BOJ in April 2024. Dr Lewis noted that the Central Bank has been tracking the performance of each deposit-taking institution (DTI) monthly and publishing those reports both on its website and in the two major newspapers.

“We’ve been monitoring their compliance against the standard and each of them have submitted to us Board-approved plans, meaning their board members have approved action plans to bring themselves into conformity with the service level standards. We continue to have dialogue with the DTIs individually and as a group, represented by the Jamaica Bankers Association,” he informed.

“We have a target under the standards that indicates that 90 per cent of those ABMs should be operational, and banks have been meeting and exceeding that target consistently since the standards have been implemented,” he pointed out.

Dr Lewis, however, indicated that the downtime for several machines remains below the service-level standards.

“Entities have been hovering between 89 per cent and 90 per cent, which is below the standard of 95 per cent. So, that’s where we have seen that the performance requires improvement, and we continue to dialogue with them in terms of the reasons for that,” he noted.

“Primarily what we have understood is that as they have changed out the old ABMs for newer ABMs. They have had operational issues in terms of calibrating those new ABMs to the currency denominations and other factors. So, there’s been a trade-off in terms of more ABMs being installed and more being operational but the uptime not being at the standard. So, we continue to dialogue with them in relation to that,” he added.

The service-level standards, which bring the banks under increased scrutiny, do not attract fines for breaches, and are aimed at addressing long-standing concerns raised by consumers.

Among the other provisions is that machines located in urban, or resort areas must not be out of cash for more than 60 consecutive minutes, while the time out of cash for ABMs located in rural areas should be no more than 180 minutes or three hours.