Closing Address
by
Dr the Most Honourable Andrew Holness ON, PC, MP
Prime Minister of Jamaica
at the
Digital Financial Inclusion and Transformation in Jamaica
Launch of the World Bank Report
on
April 23, 2026
__________________________________________________________________
Ambassador the Honourable Audrey Marks, Minister of Efficiency, Innovation, and Digital Transformation; that’s a huge title. We place great importance on what you do, and that we have carved out a section of the government to address this shows the seriousness of the government in these matters.
I’m not seeing Minister Williams. Minister Williams should be here, and I don’t see the financial secretary here. Well, in their place, let me acknowledge Minister Hill and other members of the government and permanent secretaries who may be here.
Mr Harish Natarajan, Practice Manager, Financial Inclusion and Infrastructure, Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation (FCI), World Bank and other members of the World Bank team. Harish, I like your title, Practice Manager; that’s the proper term. I’ve never heard it before, but I like it. I think I will adopt it.
Dr Wayne Robertson, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Jamaica,
Representatives of public and private sector bodies,
Representatives of the media,
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a good afternoon, and this afternoon’s discussions have been both timely and substantive. They have brought forward valuable insights, grounded in data, experience, and practical engagement.
I wish to acknowledge the contributions of the World Bank, our national stakeholders, and our development partners whose work continues to strengthen Jamaica’s policy landscape. What has emerged clearly from this dialogue is a balanced understanding of where Jamaica stands, recognising both the meaningful progress we have made and the significant opportunities that remain ahead.
Importantly, this engagement reflects a shared commitment to evidence-based policy, innovation, and reform that is practical and implementable. By the way, this doesn’t mean that we’re not going to target things that may be difficult; this is still an expression of our ambition. The true value of these discussions, however, will not be measured by the quality of analysis alone, but by the strength of the actions and the partnerships that follow; that is a standard by which we must judge ourselves.
Jamaica understands resilience. It is not an abstract concept to us. It is a lived experience embedded in our national story, but resilience alone is not enough. Resilience allows a nation to withstand difficulty; it does not by itself guarantee progress. The true test of leadership is whether moments of disruption are transformed into opportunities for advancement. To recover is necessary; to advance is imperative.
Recovery restores what was lost. Resurgence creates something greater than what existed before. That distinction is not rhetorical. It has practical consequences for every policy choice we make, particularly in the context of how we approach post-Melissa reconstruction. A nation that is rebuilding has a choice that every stable nation has but rarely gets to execute. We can restore what existed, or we can decide to build what should have existed.
Melissa has forced the reconstruction of roads, schools, health facilities, and housing at a scale that would otherwise have taken us decades to do. The question is whether we do this with the systems and standards of the past, or whether we use this moment to embed digital infrastructure, resilient design, and modern governance into the foundations of the Jamaica we are building forward. That is the obligation of leadership, to ensure that the Jamaica which emerges from this is stronger, more connected, and more prepared than the one that existed before Melissa.
This means greater investment and genuine innovation. It means new ideas becoming new industries, becoming new jobs and new opportunities. It means refusing to be constrained by systems that no longer serve us, outdated processes, unnecessary friction, and governance that moves slower than the economy. It is designed to support, and it means ensuring that growth when it comes is not concentrated in the hands of a few but reaches across communities and generations. That is precisely why we are establishing the National Reconstruction and Resilience Authority.
Construction at the scale and speed required cannot be managed through ordinary administrative channels at ordinary administrative speed. NaRRA’s mandate is clear: move fast, coordinate across institutions, cut through bureaucracy without cutting corners, and deliver results that are visible to the people who most need them. At the center of that transformation is digital capability. Countries are no longer competing solely on geography and natural resources.
I recently had an opportunity to address a body of well-established Jamaicans overseas, and I made the point that the old way of thinking about our economy and our society, which we have had that frame of thought for the last 50 years, will not carry us for the next 50 years. One of the ways in which we think of ourselves, we like to think of ourselves as having an exceptionally well-placed island in terms of our geography, so our geography is an asset. We like to say we’re the center of the Caribbean; we are in close proximity to all the shipping lanes; therefore, logistics is such a great opportunity for us, and it is, but that alone, in and of itself, is not the way forward.
We like to think of ourselves as a fairly well-resourced island. We’ve had bauxite, we have some of the best quality foods, and in terms of agriculture and agroprocessing, we have great opportunities, and limestone. We have all kinds of resources, so we tend to look at our economic opportunities in terms of geography and in terms of resources, but for us to compete and take advantage of those, we have to now consider agility efficiency as a resource.
Indeed, countries that don’t have our geography, that don’t have our resources, are outcompeting us, have far larger GDP than we do several times over, and what is the main resource that they have? Agility and efficiency; they create an environment where people want to come and live, want to do business. I mean, that’s what we say in our Vision 2030: Jamaica, the place of choice to live, work, do business, and raise families. We must truly change our mindset to make efficiency and productivity a resource for Jamaica. That will be the new frame of thinking about our economy, about our society; efficiency as a resource, productivity as a resource.
Countries are no longer competing solely on geography and natural resources. They are competing on agility. They’re competing on how efficiently they can move data and, on the ability to deploy technology effectively. We need to embrace digital transformation. We need to embrace digital society. We have seen this clearly in the case of countries like Estonia, which rebuilt its entire public administration around a digital identity and data exchange architecture, not simply moving existing processes online, but redesigning how the state functions.
The result is a public service that operates with a fraction of the bureaucracy at significantly lower cost and with measurably higher citizens’ trust. That is the standard of ambition we must hold ourselves to. So it’s not digitization for digitization’s sake because it sounds great, or that’s the next fad; that’s not what we are about, but a fundamental redesign of how we govern and how we serve.
Jamaica has already taken many meaningful steps in this direction. You could look at the Tax Administration Jamaica online platform with reduced compliance costs for thousands of businesses. One of the things that I’m really happy about is that I was able to move through quickly, with the support of Minister Vaz and Minister Marks, was the motor vehicle registration online and the removal or redefining of the requirement for fitness. People stop me all the time to say, thank you, Prime Minister, I don’t have to be in this long line. And it’s really meaningful that we did that as a sign to the public to say, if you embrace digitization, this is how much it will save you in real time and resources.
We have been taking some steps, and these are not isolated improvements. They are part of a broader shift towards a more responsive and citizen-centered state. A small entrepreneur in Clarendon can now access markets beyond local boundaries, reaching customers across Jamaica and internationally. Manufacturers can optimize supply chains through digital systems. Tourism operators can connect instantly with global audiences, and these are practical transformations that improve competitiveness and generate growth.
In education, we are again integrating digital transformation in terms of how we train our students. We’re now able to bring more rural students into access training. And in finance, the implications are even more promising. Digital platforms, online banking, electronic transfers, mobile applications, and Jamaica’s JAM-DEX system should be making transactions faster, safer, and more convenient is in my script, but I want to add one more; the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica and all the bankers were here, Audrey; cheaper. And notice that I didn’t say more affordable; transaction costs must go down.
I should not be considering the cost of transferring money online; I shouldn’t have to have that consideration. The Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, if we use the RTGA system, we shouldn’t have to consider a cost. Read my expressions, not just my words. And I think this is where the effort really needs to be focused on, digitization for financial inclusion. We have not moved fast enough on this matter. We took a step; we invested in JAM-DEX. One would’ve thought that by now the take-up on the use of JAM-DEX would’ve been much more than it is.
One of the reasons why I have appointed a minister for this is to ensure that it happens. There are just too many excuses, too many interests that are divergent. It’s not in Jamaica’s interest not to have a fully digital financial system, and whatever it takes to get it done, minister, you have my 100% support. We must get it done.
During the pandemic, for the first time, Jamaica had the ability to provide social welfare interventions to its citizens. The problem was not money at that time; the problem was how do we get the money to the people virtually because the pandemic prevented physical transactions. And that is when we really understood the significant social loss of not having a fully banked society, of not having financial inclusion.
It was a nightmare to get people registered, get their bank accounts, to individually identify them, and the funny thing is that when we went to Parliament, this time it wasn’t about money; we were in Parliament discussing the distribution of care packages for communities that we had to quarantine and the discussion by the opposite side was that just give the people the food packages, man, don’t ask them for any IDs. We well knew that the same people who are saying that would come back to the PAAC and the PAC and say, how did you give out food packages to people, and you can’t identify them.
So, we knew that whatever we did, we had to have a strong accountability mechanism. Had we at that time structured and delivered the NIDS (National Identification System), and had a fully digital payment and transaction platform with the society fully banked, it would be the push of a key on a keyboard and the delivery of the resources to the people who needed them. In identifying people who should receive whatever care or support packages, everyone would have their ID simply to show, and the verification process would be easy, but we know the history of the opposition to having this kind of digital platform and identification.
One did not think that four or five years after we would have Hurricane Melissa, where communities were cut off, and we would have to again provide welfare benefits in mass, or care packages, humanitarian relief packages to persons. And then the question again would arise, how do we give out packages to people we can’t identify, and how did you use the money that you got?
This is a perfect example of how the integration of technology reduces bureaucracy and improves accountability. We need to get this done, Minister. We have been talking about it, and we’ve been going around in circles. As I said, there are divergent perspectives on a unified payment platform, divergent perspectives on which systems to use. We need to make some final decisions and put in place the legislation. Legislation, much of it is already in place, and we may need to use moral persuasion on the actors to ensure that the digital transformation in the financial sector, in particular, moves quickly, and that when it is done, the promise of faster transactions, more convenient transactions, but I’m going to stick to my term, cheaper transactions. Jamaicans understand when I say cheaper versus less expensive or affordable. The transaction costs are too high, much too high.
I think I’ve made my point, so thank you, everyone.