Driven mainly by an end in government pandemic-related payment disbursements, payment activity facilitated by electronic money service providers (EMSPs) dropped more than 42 percent in 2022.

The Central Bank of The Bahamas revealed in its just released Annual Report and Financial Statements a further decline in the value of transactions processed across those platforms.

This moderation was despite a documented 70 percent growth in the number of electronic money users at the end of 2022. The CBOB reported a total of 93,464 personal accounts and 1,409 business users, which is a more than three-fold increase from the 396 in 2021.

"In terms of activity, the number of top-up transactions contracted by 42.6 percent to 837,954, while the value fell by 48.5 percent to $57.1 million. In line with the decrease in the use of social transfers, the number of withdrawals declined more than four-fold to 44,509, and the corresponding value reduced by 33.2 percent to $74.0 million. During 2022, the number of person-to-person (P2P) transactions declined by 40.9 percent to 22,127, while the value registered a 38.7 percent contraction to $5.9 million," the bank said.

"In contrast, person-to-business (P2B) transactions more than doubled to 339,749, supported by Central Bank and authorized financial institutions' initiatives to expand Sand Dollar adoption and usage. Consequently, the value rose by 16 percent to $52.3 million. Business-to-business (B2B) transactions decreased sharply in volume to 158 from 2,107, which occasioned a 32.7 percent reduction in value to $3.4 million."

As for Sand Dollar usage, the Central Bank noted an increase in the amount in circulation during 2022 to $1.05 million, from $300,000 in 2021.

"Sand Dollars still circulate within a very nascent space for mobile payments, on the whole, although this is the ecosystem that most target for near-term adoptions activities. In particular, the number of merchants enrolled by AFIs [authorized financial institutions], at varying capacity and awareness of the system's interoperability features, advanced to 1,429 from 565 in the previous year, with the number of wallet holders in reach of Sand Dollars increasing to 98,551 from 33,470 in 2021," the bank said.

"While existing wallet adopters represent the equivalent of 20 percent to 25 percent of transactional account holders within the banking system at the end of 2022, the peer to peer (P2P) and peer-to business (P2B) payments are still collectively compressed in value at $55.7 million in 2022, a majority still denominated other than in Sand Dollars. Collectively, these payments represented less than one percent of estimated non-cash domestic payments cleared though intra-bank transfers, ACH (interbank), and via credit and debit cards (which totalled more than $17 billion in 2022)."

Central Bank Governor John Rolle said last month that near the second half of the year there will be accelerated activities in 2023 to promoted greater Sand Dollar adoption.

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