CIBC Caribbean told its Jamaican customers this week that cheques of one million dollars or more, manager's cheques included, will no longer be issued or accepted from 1 September. Scotiabank Jamaica and First Global Bank set the same date, and the change is a joint move through the Jamaica Bankers Association to end the country's reliance on paper cheques. Under the industry timetable, the threshold drops in March 2027 and again in September 2027, and cheques of any value stop on 1 March 2028.
The stated reasons are cost and convenience. The less discussed consequence is that Jamaica is retiring the one payment instrument that gave banks a day or two to catch fraud before money moved. A cheque passes through a clearing window in which a bank can spot a forged signature or an altered amount and stop it. Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), where customers are being sent instead, has no such window: once a transfer settles, the money has gone.
That change arrives while bank fraud is rising and close to three in ten Jamaican adults lack full access to a bank account. Jamaica should end the cheque. It also needs the AI fraud controls an instant system requires in place before March 2028, not after the losses appear in a Financial Stability Report.
The timetable Jamaica's banks have set
CIBC Caribbean confirmed the 1 September cut-off on 16 July, following identical announcements from Scotiabank Jamaica and First Global Bank. Customers paying at or above the threshold are being directed to RTGS through online banking and mobile apps.
| Date | Cheques no longer issued or accepted |
|---|---|
| 1 September 2026 | J$1,000,000 and above |
| March 2027 | J$500,000 and above |
| September 2027 | J$100,000 and above |
| 1 March 2028 | All cheques, at any value |
That leaves about nineteen months to rebuild fraud controls that came built into an instrument Jamaica has used for generations.
Fraud already moves to whichever channel is weakest
The Bank of Jamaica's Financial Stability Report for 2024 recorded internet banking scams up almost ninefold since 2019, and cheque fraud at its highest level in five years, as banks closed loopholes criminals had used against payment cards. Card fraud still makes up around 56 percent of cases. Total fraud reported across the banking sector reached J$1.73 billion for the year to March 2023, almost double the pre-pandemic peak in 2019.
Each time banks tighten one channel, fraud moves to the next. RTGS transfers will absorb cheque volume, and they remove the one protection a cheque offered a defrauded customer: time. A cheque can be stopped between writing and clearing. An RTGS transfer that a customer authorised, even because a scammer posed as a supplier or a bank officer, generally cannot be recalled once it settles.
A Warning From Elsewhere
The United Kingdom went through this when it built Faster Payments, its real-time transfer system, in 2008. Authorised push payment (APP) fraud, where a criminal tricks a customer into sending a real-time transfer, became one of the country's largest categories of payment fraud, with losses in the hundreds of millions of pounds a year according to UK industry and regulator figures. Jamaica is on the same road several years later, and can learn from what went wrong.
Who the deadline could leave behind
The National Financial Inclusion Demand-Side Study found that 77.2 percent of Jamaican adults held an account at a formal financial institution in 2023, so 22.8 percent did not. Another 6.3 percent were underbanked: they used an account for little more than receiving deposits.
| Income group | Share with a formal account, 2023 |
|---|---|
| Upper income | 95.6% |
| Middle income | 92.0% |
| Working class | 79.8% |
| Lower income | 59.6% |
Most of the unbanked live in rural parishes, further from a branch and more likely to be paid in cash. They are the people most likely to have used a cheque or money order for an occasional large payment.
The Bank of Jamaica launched the second phase of its National Financial Inclusion Strategy in February 2026, built around access, education and trust. At present the payments change and the inclusion strategy run on separate tracks inside the same institution. Joining them is where AI can do the most for the people this deadline affects.
Four AI tools that replace the protection cheques gave
Each of these is in production at banks and payment processors outside the Caribbean today. For Jamaica the constraint is deployment speed.
1. Score the transfer before it settles
A cheque gave a bank a day or two. RTGS gives it the moment before the customer presses confirm. Transaction scoring models use account behaviour, transfer size, recipient history, and device and location signals to flag a risky transfer at that moment, and hold it for a call-back or a one-time verification. Card networks and major real-time payment schemes run this kind of scoring by default. Jamaica's banks need it on RTGS transfers specifically.
2. Detect supplier and bank-officer impersonation
APP scams persuade a real customer to authorise a real payment, so card fraud models miss them. The warning signs are behavioural: a last-minute change to bank details on an invoice, pressure to pay the same day, instructions arriving by email instead of a verified channel. Banks in Britain and Australia have built models trained on these patterns into their business banking platforms. Jamaican businesses moving from manager's cheques to RTGS this September are the first exposed.
3. Open accounts without a branch visit
Traditional onboarding needs documents, a branch visit and often a credit history that a rural, cash-paid worker lacks. Mobile money operators in Africa and fintech lenders in Latin America build identity and risk profiles from phone-camera ID checks, mobile transaction history and utility payment records. This is how the Bank of Jamaica's access goals and its payments change could meet.
4. Give the regulator a live view
The Bank of Jamaica reviews fraud largely through periodic reporting, culminating in an annual Financial Stability Report. The Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Bank of England use supervisory analytics to monitor payment data as it is generated. With that capability, the Bank of Jamaica could see a spike in a specific fraud pattern within days of it starting.
Where this plan is weakest
Scoring models flag legitimate payments too, and every held transfer is a frustrated customer who may go back to cash. Banks will be tempted to set thresholds loosely to keep complaints down, and I do not know yet where Jamaican banks will draw that line. Publishing the share of transfers held, and how fast they are released, would keep them honest.
What banks, the regulator and customers should do before March 2028
- Commercial banks: switch on pre-settlement scoring for RTGS before September 2027. That is when the J$100,000 threshold moves a much larger number of smaller payments onto RTGS. Fraud patterns established before then will be expensive to unwind.
- The Bank of Jamaica: update its Guidelines for Electronic Retail Payment Services. Make transaction screening on RTGS channels a condition of operation, with a common minimum standard, instead of leaving each bank to set its own.
- The Bank of Jamaica: link the inclusion strategy to the cheque timetable. Set a target for remote account opening in rural parishes, and measure it against each threshold date.
- Business owners: put a call-back rule on supplier payments now. Any change to a supplier's bank details is confirmed by phone on a number already in your records, and approved by a second person, before the first RTGS payment goes out.
- Banks and the Jamaica Bankers Association: publish a customer guide in plain language. Explain what replaces a manager's cheque for a car or property deposit, how to confirm a payee, and whom to call within minutes of a suspected scam.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the cheque timetable apply to every bank in Jamaica?
The timetable is an industry plan through the Jamaica Bankers Association, and CIBC Caribbean, Scotiabank Jamaica and First Global Bank have announced the 1 September 2026 cut-off. Other institutions set their own notice dates, so check your bank's website or ask your branch for its written schedule. Credit unions and building societies may move on different dates.
What should I use instead of a manager's cheque for a car or property deposit?
Use an RTGS transfer from your bank's online platform or at a branch, sent to an account you have confirmed directly with the seller or their attorney. Confirm the account number by phone on a number you already have, never only from an email or WhatsApp message. For property, pay into the attorney's client account and ask for a written receipt.
Can I get my money back if I am tricked into sending an RTGS transfer?
Sometimes, if you act within minutes. Call your bank's fraud line at once, give the transfer details and ask it to contact the receiving bank; funds that have not been withdrawn can occasionally be frozen. Report the scam to the police as well. The UK made reimbursement of most APP scam losses mandatory in October 2024, but I am not aware of an equivalent rule in Jamaica, so ask your bank for its written policy before you rely on one.
How can a business check a supplier's request to change bank details?
Call the supplier on a phone number from your own records or a previous invoice, not one given in the request. Require a second staff member to approve any change, and send a small test payment and confirm receipt before the full amount. Most payment diversion scams arrive as an email from a compromised or look-alike address, so treat urgency in the message as a warning sign.
What options exist for Jamaicans without a bank account?
Ask a bank or credit union about a basic low-balance account, which may need less documentation than a standard one. Jamaica's central bank digital currency, JAM-DEX, can be held in a mobile wallet such as Lynk without a traditional bank account. Remittance companies and bill payment agents also offer ways to send money without cheques, though fees vary, so compare them before a large payment.