KINGSTON, Jamaica— With their constituents often forced to travel many miles to access automated banking machines (ABMs), Members of Parliament (MPs) representing rural constituencies are pleading with the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ), to assist them in getting more machines sited in their communities.

The matter was ventilated at last Thursday’s meeting of the Parliament’s Economy and Production Committee that was attended by Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) Governor Richard Byles, and a team from the central bank.

Member of Parliament for Westmoreland Eastern, Daniel Lawrence, told the committee that there is one ABM serving the entire constituency. The lone machine is located in Whitehouse. Two, including one that was located in Darliston, were removed after they were broken into.

Lawrence told the committee that this means that people in Darliston, in the centre of the constituency, who need ABM service, are forced to travel 30 miles to Savanna-la-Mar or between 35 and 40 miles to Montego Bay to access the service. He stated that they may be forced to travel all the way to Black River in St Elizabeth to access an ABM.

Lawrence asked Governor Byles whether the BOJ gave any oversight to the spaces where ABMs are installed. He also queried whether a financial institution would permanently pull a machine because it was broken into, without due consideration for the wider public. Lawrence lamented that the lone ABM in Whitehouse works sporadically, with down time of several weeks. It has been down since Hurricane Beryl impacted the island on July 3.

Pointing out that the majority of workers have their salaries deposited in their bank accounts, Lawrence said “to travel all the way to Black River, Montego Bay, Savanna-la-Mar, is not easy”. He highlighted that the transportation cost to access money to buy groceries was “too much”.

Lawrence said he understood that the banks have to protect their interests, but said that as an MP, he has to also look out for the interests of his constituents.

“I totally sympathise with that situation. To live in a community and the nearest ABM is 30 miles away is crazy,” Byles remarked.

“On the other hand, for the financial institution, they have an ABM, some of which cost half-a-million US dollars, vandalised, it’s natural for them to want to protect it,” Byles added.

Lawrence was joined by fellow first-term MP, Morland Wilson, who represents Westmoreland Western.

He argued that the banks will likely satisfy the BOJ’s 95 per cent compliance rate for ABM service because of the large concentration of the machines in the urban centres. The BOJ did admit that the majority of the 883 ABMs islandwide are concentrated in the urban centres of  Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine and St James.

Wilson pointed out that in rural constituencies, a single ABM could serve between 30,000 and 50,000 people. He noted that in Westmoreland, the highest concentration of ABMs would be in Savanna-la-Mar, as he lamented that in the resort town of Negril, which falls in his constituency, there are just three machines. He said these are insufficient to serve the 10,000 hotel workers and other employees who depend on these machines.

“In that context, when one goes down, you have these lines that go in perpetuity around the building and they stand up in rain for hours waiting to use the machine. This goes not just from 9-5, but into the night as people are just lining there, queuing,” Wilson said.

He told the committee that the issue is compounded by the fact that the financial institutions are “removing their footprint” so they don’t have branches anymore that people can access. Where they still have branches, “they have something new called non-cash branches which means you cannot get money,” Wilson pointed out.

Meanwhile, Dwight Sibbles, who represents Clarendon Northern, said there are only two ABMs in his constituency. He said they face significant downtime, with the other problem being that they often run out of cash quickly “because they serve so many people”.

“I think the banking institutions could pay some attention to the rural space,” Sibbles remarked.

The BOJ said it is willing to help, but Byles told the MPs that the machines come at significant cost to the financial institutions, as much as US$500,000 (J$76 million). They were also told that they were best positioned to help identify suitable locations where the ABMs could be sited.

The BOJ team had earlier told the committee that Hurricane Beryl had disrupted the nine-month deadline it had given DTIs to fully implement minimum service standards for ABMs. The directive was given in April amid widespread customer complaints of machines running out of cash or being down for long periods.

On Thursday, Byles said “We have published a couple months of reports on these machines, by bank, by geography, and we’ve seen improvements over the months and then came Beryl and that has been an obvious setback”.

He noted that before the setback, the BOJ had “good interactions with the banks regarding the need to improve their ABM services”.

“I think they were seized of the importance in the public’s mind of raising the standards and they agreed to cooperate and that cooperation was actually in action until Beryl came,” he emphasised.

“We have the challenge now of building back to those standards and until we can get power back, internet back into all of the communities, we’re going to see that these standards remain fairly low”.

Under the service standards, the banks are required to have 90 per cent of their ABMs operating in any given month. The ABMs must also maintain an up-time of 95 per cent or more. Deputy BOJ Governor, Dr Jide Lewis told the committee that since the hurricane hit, the standards had fallen to between 68 per cent and 87 per cent.

However, Lawrence told the central bank representatives that the problem with the lack of ABMs in his constituency predates Beryl.

Byles shared that the banks and the Minister of Finance were in discussions about ways in which the Government and the banks can cooperate to make sure that the distribution of ABMs throughout the island meets customer requirements more, “even when there’s not a good economic case or where the private sector can’t find an appropriate and secure location”.

“In this regard…the government may have offices that are secure; there may be police stations …where ABMS can be put in,” he said.

He encouraged the MPs to become part of the process in identifying suitable locations, noting that they know their constituencies best.

“I think the MPs are in a better position to initiate that process and bring it to the attention of the banking community, through the minister of finance or the Bank of Jamaica. We’re happy to play that role, to coordinate it along with the MPs,” said Byles.

Sibbles said the committee would be looking to take the suggestion on board. He also said he would be speaking with the Minister of National Security with a view to having more ABMs located near, or on the premises of police stations.