By Dennise Williams, Staff ReporterCHRISTMAS TIME is here and Jamaicans are unabated in their zeal for shopping. The Multi-Link Network, Jamaica's electronic banking system, dispensed J$1.516 billion for the period December 1-20. And according to estimates by MultiLink, Jamaicans have not finished their Christmas shopping. By month end, it is projected that J$2.3 billion will be the total overall figure of funds accessed through the MultiLink network for December 2003.
The network, established in 1997, interconnects financial institutions through Automated Banking Machines (ABM) and merchants to their customers' bank accounts through Point of Sales (POS) terminals thus allowing access to funds on a 24/7 basis.
Mr. Edmundo Jenez, general manager of JETS Inc., the company that manages MultiLink, revealed that Friday, December 19 was the best day ever for MultiLink. Mr. Jenez explained, "last Friday, $152.6 million was withdrawn. That single day figure was the record for the 6 years we have been in business." Mr. Jenez proudly revealed that despite the heavy usage over the weekend, there were no glitches. "We had a picture perfect weekend. Not a flaw. There were no Complaints from merchants."
There shouldn't be. As at December 20, over 483,000 withdrawals occurred over the network. Of the $1.5 billion spent, $1 billion was taken from ABMs and $516 million was accessed through POS terminals located in stores.
WELL POSITIONED
But Mr. Jenez was not too concerned that cash taken from ABMs outstripped debit card transactions in stores. "The machines are well positioned near to the stores. Haven't you noticed all of the ABMs going up in the shopping malls? And Jamaicans still have a strong bias towards cash. So what is happening is that consumers are going to the ABM near the store and just giving the cash to the merchant."
Despite the large sums of money being spent overall, according to Mr. Jenez, most transactions are in small increments.
"The average amount with-drawn from the system per user is $3,137.00, this is up 15.93 per cent from the $2,845.00 taken in November 2003. However, breaking it down further, at the ABM the average amount of cash taken is $3,464, up 20.14 per cent from the previous month. Inside the stores, the average POS transaction is $2,652, up 12.73 per cent from November figures." At the time of this interview there were a few days left for Christmas shopping.
And so, Mr. Jenez predicted that the last shopping day before Christmas would bring in about $140-160 million in MultiLink transactions. "There is a peculiar relationship between the weekend before Christmas and Christmas Eve shopping. The further away from the weekend Christmas is, the money spent on shopping either meets or exceeds expectations. The last-minute shoppers are still a force to be reckoned with." Currently there are 170,420 MultiLink cardholders. As at December 20, there were 300 ABMs across the island and 7,554 POS terminals. Mr. Jenez notes that there are new terminals being added in shops every day.
