Despite evidence that digital payments can drive business growth, only eight per cent of small merchants in Jamaica use point-of-sale (POS) systems, with the country averaging 11 POS terminals per 1,000 inhabitants.

This was revealed in a recent MasterCard study on the state of digitalisation and financial inclusion in Jamaica, which highlighted that although the island has a strong foundation for wider digital payments, it faces critical merchant acceptance barriers.

“From a benchmark perspective, markets that are more digitised tend to have over 50 terminals per 1,000 inhabitants,” Dalton Fowles, MasterCard country manager for Jamaica, told journalists on Tuesday at a media roundtable. “So at eight per cent, we are way behind the target and it is impacting the state of digitisation.”