Cyrus Durand, Banknote motif: the word ONE with each letter set against a circle of lathe work, ca. 1824–42. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain.
Money sent home from abroad pays school fees in Mandeville and medication in Portmore for hundreds of thousands of Jamaican households. On 12 July 2026 the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) reported that net remittances into Jamaica reached US$3,247.5 million in 2025, up 3.8 percent on 2024. Bank of Jamaica figures show gross inflows of US$3.49 billion and outflows of US$238.2 million. By source:
| Source country | 2025 remittances | Change on 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| United States | US$2,103.1 million | +5.4% |
| United Kingdom | US$352.0 million | +10.5% |
| Canada | US$295.1 million | +3.5% |
Remittances were worth about 15.3 percent of Jamaica's GDP in 2024, according to Bank of Jamaica and World Bank data, roughly three times the global average.
Over the past two years I have trained Caribbean bank boards on AI through StarApple AI, more than a hundred sessions. The topic that comes up most, ahead of fraud and digital strategy, is correspondent banking: how long the US dollar correspondent account will last, and what happens if it goes.
Why the 2025 figure rose, and why it is fragile
Hurricane Melissa struck western Jamaica in late 2025, and the Bank of Jamaica now expects recovery to take three to four years. Diaspora transfers usually rise after a Caribbean disaster, and they did, on top of wage growth among Jamaicans working in the US, UK and Canada.
The flow is concentrated. About two of every three remittance dollars come from the United States, and three countries supply most of the total. That money passes through a small number of correspondent accounts and money transfer licences, each of which depends on a foreign bank judging the compliance cost worth carrying.
How far correspondent banking has shrunk
- The Bank for International Settlements has tracked a fall of about 25 percent in active correspondent banking relationships worldwide since 2011, with the steepest cuts in Africa, the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean.
- A 2017 Caribbean Association of Banks survey found that 21 of 23 member countries had lost at least one correspondent relationship.
- Research using SWIFT data from 2011 to 2020 found that Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, the Bahamas and Jamaica each lost more than 40 percent of their correspondent counterparties.
- The World Bank has described the Caribbean as the region most affected by de-risking, as cited in Atlantic Council research.
When a correspondent exits, local banks and transfer operators either find a replacement, usually at a higher price, or lose the ability to move US dollars. Smaller operators serving rural parishes are cut first. Recipients pay through higher fees and through the risk that their channel closes and pushes them to something slower or less regulated.
Why global banks leave
Correspondent accounts with small island banks were never a large revenue line for global banks. After more than a decade of multibillion-dollar money laundering and sanctions penalties against major banks, the cost of checking each small correspondent often exceeds what the account earns.
Many global compliance teams now manage risk by geography. A well-run bank in Kingston or Bridgetown is grouped with a poorly supervised one elsewhere in the region, because telling them apart one by one costs more than the market is worth to the global bank.
What AI compliance can show a correspondent bank
The practical goal is to make a Caribbean bank cheaper to check. A joint Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority survey in 2024 found that 75 percent of UK financial firms were already using AI, with another 10 percent planning to within three years, and compliance and fraud detection are among the most common uses.
Machine learning transaction monitoring reviews all payment traffic continuously and can cut the false alerts that make compliance teams check thousands of harmless payments for each suspicious one. Combined with automated sanctions screening and beneficial ownership checks, it produces a continuous, auditable record a Caribbean bank can show its correspondent: which alerts fired, who reviewed them, what was reported. Sumsub, a compliance technology vendor, reported in 2026 that its clients using AI detection cut fraud losses by 40 percent; treat vendor figures as a claim to test, not a benchmark.
This will not win back a bank that has already decided to leave the region. It can lower the cost of keeping a relationship, and it gives regional banking associations evidence to put to regulators in Washington, London and Ottawa that blanket regional de-risking is out of proportion to the risk of individual institutions. I cannot point to a case where AI tooling alone saved a Caribbean correspondent relationship. That test has not been run publicly, and it should be.
Lower transfer costs through fintech rails
Hope Research Group values the Caribbean fintech market at about US$1.2 billion in 2025 and projects US$2.8 billion by 2030, with remittances the largest use. Platforms that settle through local account networks, instead of a chain of SWIFT intermediaries, avoid some of the correspondent links that are shrinking.
AI does specific jobs inside those platforms: fraud screening in milliseconds in place of manual holds, and choosing the cheapest currency route and settlement path for each transfer. The saving to a family depends on the corridor, so compare the total cost (fee plus exchange rate margin) before switching.
Credit for people who receive remittances
In rural parishes and smaller territories, many recipients still collect cash, because branch access is limited or account-opening paperwork is hard to meet. They have little formal credit history, even if they have received a steady monthly amount for years.
Underwriting models can treat two years of regular transfers, together with utility payments and mobile money records, as evidence of income. That opens small loans and savings products to households that have been reliable in practice and invisible on paper. Development lenders have piloted similar models elsewhere. The sending side is already crowded with Western Union, MoneyGram, Wise and others; a product built around the recipient's history is largely unbuilt in the Caribbean.
"The families sending that US$3.25 billion did their part. The compliance systems between them and the people receiving it need to be cheaper to check, and AI can help with that." - Adrian Dunkley, the AI Boss
What to do next
- Caribbean Association of Banks: scope a shared transaction monitoring and sanctions screening service for smaller member banks this year, starting with a cost estimate per institution and a list of three banks willing to pilot it.
- Bank of Jamaica and other CARICOM central banks: publish supervisory expectations for AI-based monitoring (model validation, documentation, human review of alerts), so a bank that meets them has something concrete to show a correspondent.
- Compliance heads at local banks: measure your current false alert rate and review time per alert before buying any AI tool, so a vendor's claimed improvement can be checked against your own baseline.
- Fintech founders: build for the recipient. Start with a savings or small loan product that uses a customer's remittance history, with written consent, as the main credit input.
- Senders and recipients: compare the full cost of your usual corridor on the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide site once a year, and switch if another licensed provider is cheaper.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find the cheapest way to send money to Jamaica?
Use the World Bank's Remittance Prices Worldwide database, which compares providers on major corridors such as US to Jamaica. Look at the total cost: the fee plus the gap between the exchange rate you get and the market rate, which is often larger than the fee. The global development target is an average cost below 3 percent of the amount sent, and many corridors are still well above it.
Who regulates remittance companies in Jamaica?
The Bank of Jamaica licenses and supervises remittance companies and their agents, and publishes a list of licensed operators. Before using a new service, check that it or its local partner is on that list. An unlicensed operator gives you no regulatory protection if money goes missing.
Can remittance history help me get a loan in Jamaica today?
Sometimes, if you can document it. Lenders use Jamaica's licensed credit bureaus, and most remittance receipts do not appear there, so bring several months of transfer receipts or bank statements showing regular deposits. Receiving transfers into a bank or credit union account, not as cash, builds a record a lender can see.
How can a Jamaican business tell if its bank is losing a correspondent relationship?
Warning signs include new limits on US dollar wires, longer processing times, requests for more documentation on routine payments, and notices that certain transaction types are no longer supported. A bank will rarely announce the cause. Businesses that depend on foreign payments should keep a working account at a second institution that uses a different correspondent.
Do regulators accept AI-based anti-money laundering monitoring?
Generally yes, provided the bank can explain and validate it. The Financial Action Task Force's guidance on new technologies supports their use, and supervisors expect documentation of how the model works, regular testing and human review of the alerts it produces. The bank remains responsible for every decision, whoever built the software.