THE Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has cleared Barita Merchant Bank to begin rolling out a digital-first banking platform, moving Cornerstone Financial Holdings from more than a decade of acquisitions and regulatory build-out into the harder test of winning customers in Jamaica’s crowded digital finance market.

The first customer-facing features will be a digital wallet and companion Visa card, but Cornerstone has not disclosed a launch date, customer targets, transaction-volume goals or adoption benchmarks, leaving unclear how quickly it expects the platform to gain traction with customers.

For years, the group’s expansion appeared to follow a familiar pattern: acquiring a banking platform, transforming Barita Investments into Jamaica’s largest securities dealer by shareholders’ equity, expanding into investment banking and wealth management, acquiring JN Fund Managers, renamed Barita Fund Managers, and securing approval to operate as a financial holding company.