Barita says BPay pilot uses group funding while customer deposits remain unavailable

Barita Financial Group says its BPay pilot is operating with group-supplied money, while participants remain unable to deposit or add their own funds. The restriction is part of a controlled trial ahead of a wider Jamaican launch, according to the company’s Sunday statement reported by the Jamaica Observer.

The digital wallet is offered by Barita Merchant Bank, a deposit-taking institution licensed by the Bank of Jamaica. Barita says BPay received regulatory approval following review and is being piloted within the central bank’s framework. It follows an earlier announcement through the Jamaica Stock Exchange of regulatory no-objection to the bank’s digital financial-services platform.

The initial banking and payments application deliberately has a limited set of functions. The company says participants use funds provided by the group to become familiar with the service. Transfers to and from accounts at other financial institutions are intended for subsequent phases, rather than being available throughout the current pilot.

Barita says the live trial is assessing functionality, technical robustness, customer experience and operational performance. The company intends to use the lessons and feedback in a broader rollout targeted for the coming weeks.

The company’s stated priority is financial inclusion among unbanked and underbanked Jamaicans, especially young people and young adults with limited access to formal services. The former have no bank account; the latter have some access but remain poorly served. A wallet can provide a way to make digital payments, while the services available through it depend on the provider and the stage of development.

Mark Myers, chairman of Barita Investments and a director of Barita Financial Group and Barita Merchant Bank, said reaching people in their communities addresses the time and travel involved in visiting an office during working hours. He said familiar institutions also offer a setting for explaining the product, answering questions and addressing scepticism among people with little experience of formal finance.

The reported outreach spans campuses, workplaces and communities. It includes the University of the West Indies, the University of Technology, Jamaica, Mico Teachers College, urban and rural high schools, public-sector groups such as police officers and teachers, and employees of corporate businesses.

Community leaders and elected representatives from both major parties have also helped organise local activity, Barita says. Myers said all funds used in the pilot, including incentives and grants, are financed by Barita Financial Group and its subsidiaries as part of the group’s investment in BPay and financial inclusion.

Myers described participation and customer feedback as encouraging and said many participants had never previously held a bank account. The statement does not provide a total enrolment figure or a measured rate of continuing use.

The pilot is also a channel for assistance. Myers says more than J$170 million in Hurricane Melissa relief grants have been distributed through BPay to people in some of the communities most affected by the storm. He also identified back-to-school grants and other community-development programmes supported by the group.

The service builds on a platform whose regulatory clearance the Observer reported in June. At that stage, a wallet and companion Visa card were the intended first features. The longer-term proposition included savings, loans, payments, remittances, investing and wealth-management services. The group declined to provide specific customer-acquisition, transaction-volume, asset-growth or adoption targets at the time.

Barita now expects a wider mass-market rollout in the coming weeks, shaped by the pilot’s results. No fixed public launch date was given in Sunday’s statement. The proposed expansion would follow a trial in which funding comes from the group and customer deposits remain unavailable.