Key Findings
- JAM-DEX® demonstrates a common retail CBDC pattern: wallet downloads can rise quickly, while habitual CBDC use remains elusive.
- The main adoption barriers are ecosystem-based: limited merchant acceptance, slow intermediary participation, unclear consumer value propositions, privacy concerns, and behavioural inertia.
- Government can be an anchor for adoption by routing high-frequency payment and revenue flows through JAM-DEX®, creating real use cases rather than one-off demonstrations.
- The next phase should focus on interoperability, POS and ABM integration, offline capability, targeted merchant incentives, and culturally resonant public engagement.
Why JAM-DEX® Matters
Central banks around the world continue to explore central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), but live retail deployments remain comparatively rare. Jamaica was one of the early movers. The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) launched JAM-DEX® in 2022 after a pilot in late 2021, establishing it as legal tender alongside notes and coins. The policy case was compelling: broaden digital financial access, reduce the frictions of cash, support payment innovation, and give the public a digital form of central bank money.
Yet the experience since launch has shown that technical readiness is only the first step. JAM-DEX® works within a two-sided payments market. Consumers are unlikely to use a payment instrument they cannot spend widely, while merchants are unlikely to invest in acceptance unless customers demand it. This coordination problem is common across retail CBDC projects. The lesson from Jamaica is that a CBDC must become useful, trusted, and embedded in ordinary routines before adoption turns into sustained usage.
What the Adoption Data Shows
JAM-DEX® generated early adopters as evidenced by a rapid wave of wallet sign-ups, supported by a government incentive that credited J$2,500 (~US$16) in JAM-DEX® to the first 100,000 wallet users. That incentive helped prove that Jamaicans could be onboarded quickly. It did not, however, create lasting transaction behaviour on its own. Once some of the early adopters utilised their complimentary balances at micro-merchants, transaction activity declined, contrasting wallet acquisition and active use patterns.
By end-March 2026, there were 310,443 registered wallet-holders able to transact using JAM-DEX®, approximately 11 percent of Jamaica’s population. The ratio is more meaningful than in some jurisdictions as the number of users was likely distinct, given that only one publicly accessible wallet provider was available for much of the rollout, reducing the likelihood of duplicate wallets. Even so, JAM-DEX® represented only about 0.09 percent of currency in circulation, and approximately …
Download your sample issue here!
No part of Central Bank Payments News may be reproduced, copied, republished, or distributed in any form or by any means, in whole or in part, without the express and prior written permission of the publisher, Currency Research Malta, Ltd.
