The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian digital payments provider yesterday predicted it will this year “top” the $130m worth of transactions it settled in 2021, and said of this shift: “This is not going to be the norm; it is the norm.”

Jeffrey Beckles, Island Pay’s managing director, told the Eleuthera Business Outlook conference that the increasing uptake of digital payments was confirmed by a recent Central Bank briefing that revealed a 13 percent increase in this method of transaction settlement. Yet automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals had declined by 11 percent over the same period, indicating reduced reliance on cash.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having accelerated the transition to a digital Bahamian economy, Mr Beckles said small and medium-sized businesses in particular needed to embrace the “disruption” rather than fight it and adopt the new technology to become more efficient and effective with their payment methods.

“The Bahamas has over the years been working diligently to get our economy to perform at an optimum level in a sustained way,” he explained. “One thing we have not done well is to evolve. We need to become creatures of evolution. If we don’t change, there’s a common remark for us: Roadkill. We must evolve. The reality of this evolution for us as far as digital payments are concerned is digital adaptation.”

Arguing that The Bahamas “must adapt at the same speed” as the rest of the world, or face being left behind and becoming uncompetitive, the Island Pay chief said COVID-19 - and its lockdowns and associated other restrictions - had brutally exposed just how many companies were lagging when it came to embracing technology and digital payments.

Mr Beckles said surveys conducted during the pandemic disclosed that 50 percent of Bahamian businesses had “no capacity” to restart operations because they lacked digital integration, while 81 percent were unable to accept online payments - a percentage that has since since significantly declined.

And, while there are more cell phones in The Bahamas than its 400,000-strong population, he added that “less than 15 percent of those cell phones are used to conduct commerce. Yes, it’s a problem, but it’s a huge opportunity.

“Your cell phone will become the most important device you ever own,” Mr Beckles, suggesting that desktop and laptop computers may become obsolete. “Your life is going to be centred around the quality of your phone. You’re going to be able to manage every aspect of your life from your cell phone. Your cell phone will become a heartbeat of your existence.”

With cell phones able to control a home’s temperature and other functions, the Island Pay managing director added: “Digital payments will not become the norm; digital payments are the norm.” However, the failure of many Bahamian businesses to adapt was driven home on a recent trip to Eleuthera when he was unable to pay for fuel at two separate gas stations because they did not accept credit card payments.

Arguing that both businesses were losing revenue, and incurring a huge opportunity cost, Mr Beckles said that by switching to digital payments they would be able to eliminate the 5-7 percent card fees and reduce the costs associated with transactions by 60 percent. The costs and security risks in handling cash would also be reduced, if not eliminated.

“We settled over $130m in digital payments in 2021 and still didn’t do a lit of things,” he added of Island Pay. “That’s a significant effort in a very dismal environment, especially when the adoption is low. We anticipate topping that in 2022...... We have a client today where revenue, over a six month period after they went digital, improved by 20 percent. Think about that.”