The digitisation of the banking sector locally is already showing its susceptibility to scammers, even without the implementation of the unified payment interface (UPI). Stories from victims whose accounts have been hacked by scammers are widespread, with many blasting the banks and the government regulator, the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), for not doing enough to curb the growing trend.
According to the BOJ’s annual report, there were 481 complaints in respect of its licensed deposit-taking institutions (DTIs). Of the 11 DTIs operating in Jamaica at the end of 2023, a total of eight are banks. The 481 complaints represent an increase of 64.7% over the 292 reported for the previous year. The account-related category recorded the most complaints, accounting for 34.9% (168) of the total reported for the review year.
“Complaints in this category largely reflected challenges encountered by customers due to the expanded use of electronic banking channels,” the BOJ stated.
There were 147 complaints of fraud or impropriety, which represented an increase of 226.7% over the 45 reported for 2022. While the complaints have increased, the BOJ noted that the rate of finding resolutions has decreased. There was a decline in the resolution rate to 62.6% at end-2023, from 77.4% end-2022.
Despite concerns about frauds and cyberattacks increasing with the use of online banking and other digital platforms, the government has intensified its thrust towards making Jamaica a fully digital society. Prime Minister Andrew Holness had high praises for India’s biometric national ID programme, the Aadhaar, which has seen 1.3 billion individuals being enrolled. India’s population stands at 1.4 billion.
“India has used this unified payment interface, their digital public infrastructure, and their national identification system to increase public social safety net payments,” Holness pointed out.
“They were explaining how they are increasing benefits to include more farmers in their social safety net, which is something that Jamaica needs to do with our PATH. One of the complaints of PATH [Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education] is that it’s not reaching the persons who should be getting it, that there is a lot of leakage, double counting, but most importantly, it pains my heart when I pass the postal offices and the postal agencies and I see the long lines and people standing up to collect their PATH payments. In today’s world, we can eliminate that by putting in place a well-structured unified payment interface,” the prime minister insisted.
According to JIS, Holness said the replication of the Indian system in Jamaica will see improved benefits for individuals who access services such as PATH, noting that persons will no longer have to stand in line to receive payments.
While the use of UPI has made it more convenient to do business, access is generally affected during power cuts, outages, and other technical problems. A ransomware attack had forced the temporary shutdown of payment systems across nearly 300 small Indian local banks in August this year. The customers were not able to access payment services like making cash withdrawals or using the UPI platform.
