BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Barbados has launched a national instant payment system that allows consumers and businesses to send and receive money within seconds, marking a major step in the modernisation of the country’s financial infrastructure.
Prime Minister Mia Mottley makes the first BiMPay transaction with a local vendor. Among those witnessing the transaction was the Governor of the Central Bank of Barbados, Dr Kevin Greenidge. (Photo credit: Central Bank of Barbados)The new platform, BiMPay, went live at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, during a special launch event hosted by the Central Bank of Barbados. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley conducted the first transaction on the platform immediately after the launch, sending a payment to a food vendor.
The system enables users to make and receive payments in real time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends and public holidays, replacing a process that could previously take hours or even days for some interbank transactions to be completed.
“A modern economy needs a modern payment system,” said Central Bank Governor Dr Kevin Greenidge at the launch.
“People need to be able to send money quickly. Businesses need to be able to receive funds and have them available to spend. Vendors want to get their funds and access their money immediately…. We need a space to innovate to compete and to build the fintech industry that needs to be built.”
The launch followed months of testing involving participating financial institutions and stakeholders across the local payments ecosystem.
All six commercial banks operating in Barbados and the island’s three largest credit unions – Barbados Public Workers’ Co-operative Credit Union, City of Bridgetown Co-operative Credit Union and AffinityPlus Credit Union – were connected to the BiMPay rail, the underlying infrastructure used to process interbank transfers.
Seven of the participating institutions are also connected to the Central Bank’s BiMPay e-wallet, which allows users to make payments using phone numbers, email addresses or QR codes and to send requests for payment.
However, customers of Scotiabank and AffinityPlus Credit Union will not initially be able to link their accounts to the BiMPay app as those institutions are not yet connected to the e-wallet. Despite this, their customers can continue to send and receive interbank payments through existing online banking platforms.
The Central Bank said Scotiabank is expected to enable wallet access within 30 days, while AffinityPlus Credit Union is expected to do so within 60 days.
Officials say the platform is intended to improve the speed, efficiency and convenience of payments across the economy while supporting broader efforts to modernise the country’s financial system.
