Thorne warns digital payment reforms risk excluding vulnerable Barbadians

Opposition Leader Ralph Thorne suggested that the government’s move towards a fully digital payment system could marginalise vulnerable Barbadians and small cash-based businesses, urging clearer forecasts and assurances about its impact on everyday commerce.

As the House of Assembly met on the National Payment System (Amendment) Bill to create the BimPay digital payment system, Thorne said that the digital shift must account for people who rely on simple cash transactions to survive.

He said the government’s “digital thrust” undoubtedly represented change but questioned whether it met the test of development.

Thorne said: “This digital thrust that the government is making really falls within the category of modernisation.

The question will be asked though, is it development? We know that modernisation pertains to a process of change and change that is new, novel, a change that facilitates speed.

But development itself or development concerns itself with human elements, human factors. And so when you modernise your payment system, can you say to the public that you’re also concerning yourself with development?”

The realities on the ground demanded deeper consideration, he suggested. “There are several persons in this society who will find it hard to adjust to the thrust in the digitisation payment system. You just need to walk the street, you’ll see the vendors, you’ll see the newspaper vendors, the fruit vendors.”

He suggested that protests had already begun. “Perhaps the [MP] for Christ Church East Central [Ryan Straughn] is not aware that there is [at] present public protest against this. And it is protests not designed to reverse modernisation, but protests aimed at preserving a space that is to them sacred, and the government will have to pull these persons along with that thrust or push the persons along with that thrust.”

He pressed the government to disclose its projections for cash use once the system is in place. “What percentage of transactions will be cash one year after? What percentage of transactions will be digital or online, and how will this affect financial order or will it create financial disorder? It certainly is creating anxiety now, and one does not rise to oppose the initiative. One rises to clarify and explain and give comfort to those who will not be comforted by what is about to happen.”

Thorne said clear timelines were essential. “Will there be a segment of the population who live that very unsophisticated commercial life, will they be able to exist within that cocoon of cashlessness? So that is the concern that I expressed in relation to the amendment.”

Despite his questions, Thorne acknowledged that digitisation was necessary for Barbados to remain competitive globally. “If we are to remain part of a modern international community, things like this are necessary. International transactions I don’t think are done in cash, and therefore you will want to extend the nature of transactions to the local or national community.” (SZB)