The Central Bank of The Bahamas (CBOB) is preparing to engage the commercial banks more actively in order to boost Sand Dollar adoption, given that the commercial banks already have strong relationships with customers and merchants, CBOB Governor John Rolle said yesterday.

Rolle, who was speaking as a panelist at the Nassau Conference 2023, said this move is an important one in order to increase the adoption of the digital currency.

"We appreciate that some of the adoption is going to occur with individuals and entities that already have an existing relationship with the commercial banks," he said.

Rolle added that the development process for digital wallet platforms - that will allow people to have a more direct and seamless on-boarding experience - is almost complete. He added that the integration of the platform with the Bahamas Automated Clearing House is complete.

The CBOB gave an update on its Sand Dollar project earlier this month, revealing that the number of Sand Dollars in circulation decreased by slightly less than 20,000 between June and August, while the number of consumer wallets grew by 5,000.

The bank revealed that there is currently $1,076,064.05 worth of Sand Dollars in circulation.

The update released by the CBOB also revealed that between June and August, the number of merchant wallets only increased by 65. The bank said the diminishing levels of government transfer payments into wallets has led to a negative trend in wallet top-ups.

"Absent these transfers, wallet top-ups were approximately four-fifths lower, at an estimated $8.7 million in the first half of 2023, having a similar sized impact on reduced cash withdrawals from mobile wallets," the CBOB said in that update.

"Although less impacted, the number of person-to-person (P2P) transactions narrowed by 20.5 percent in comparison to the same period a year earlier.

"Moreover, the aggregate value of person-to-business (P2B) and business-to-business (B2B) transactions fell by 18.6 percent to an estimated $4.0 million in June. The majority of transactions processed continue to be in Sand Dollars."

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