The Central Bank of Barbados issued a public update on BiMPay, saying the national instant payment rail is operating as designed but that recent customer problems have largely arisen within participating financial institutions’ own systems and processes rather than in the core rail. It said the main issues have involved invalid payroll and pension account data, difficult e-wallet onboarding, lower transfer limits on the BiMPay app than on institutions’ own channels, and cases where funds were debited or received by an institution but not promptly posted to the customer’s account. In response, the central bank said it has required institutions to identify causes, fix them, report back, and apply customer protection measures including provisional credit where warranted. It also directed that no institution may charge any customer for a BiMPay transfer they initiate or for raising or resolving a dispute, and that no BiMPay fee may be charged to any customer before Sept. 15. The update said BiMPay went live on June 12 with all nine participating institutions connected to the rail, while seven were ready for customer onboarding to the BiMPay app. Over its first month, the rail processed close to 750,000 successful transactions worth $1.3 billion, including 28,725 successful transactions worth more than $60 million on the latest Friday cited. More than 24,000 people registered for the e-wallet and more than 13,700 linked an account. The central bank said the rail’s failure rate, defined as cases where a financial institution did not respond in time and the payment was cancelled, is below 0.2 percent and falling, but it stressed that even those cases have affected salary and pension payments. To address June payroll disruption, it formed a Payroll Command Cell with the chief executives of the six banks and three credit unions on the rail, along with the Accountant General, the Comptroller General and the National Insurance and Social Security Service, and said almost all June salaries and pensions had been paid as of the latest Friday referenced. It has also required chief executive certification that payroll validation work has been completed, imposed a common standard for BiMPay token access on institutions’ home pages, said lower BiMPay limits must be justified by documented risk assessment, and is examining institutions for queuing or delayed posting of payments, with audits possible under its statutory powers. The payroll certification exercise will continue through the current week and is due to be completed before the July pay cycle, with the Payroll Command Cell remaining active through that cycle. Any future fee proposal must first be submitted to the Central Bank of Barbados for review and must be disclosed to customers before being applied. The bank also reiterated that BiMPay will remain free for individuals, while its expectation is that use by micro and small businesses should be free or low cost depending on business size.

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