Central Bank of Barbados clarifies BiMPay salary delays stem from account formatting issues not payment rail failure

The Central Bank of Barbados has issued a clarification after some employees linked late salary payments to BiMPay, saying the delays do not reflect a failure of the national instant payment system. Instead, the cases brought to the Bank's attention involved account information submitted in a format that did not meet BiMPay's validation requirements. The Bank said this differs from the previous automated clearing house arrangement, where batch processing allowed some formatting issues to be corrected or managed before payments were completed. BiMPay processes interbank payments in real time, so account information must be correctly formatted before submission because the system validates it immediately. The Bank has been working with participating financial institutions on account formatting and payment file requirements, while those institutions continue to work with corporate customers to resolve the issues. Employers submitting payroll or other electronic payment files were told to confirm account format, file format, validation and submission requirements with their bank or credit union. Employees with existing direct deposit arrangements do not need to download or use the BiMPay e-wallet to receive salaries. The Central Bank said it is continuing to work with participating financial institutions to keep salary payments and other electronic transfers flowing smoothly. Since interbank transfers resumed on BiMPay on June 13, the payment rail has processed 126,000 transactions totaling $210 million.