SMEs see spike in business with adoption of digital payment systems
Published:Thursday | October 16, 2025 | 12:14 AMSashana Small/Staff Reporter
Jamaican small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have embraced digital payments have seen significant growth in their businesses, a recent Mastercard study has revealed.
The study, conducted between March and April this year, found that 91 per cent of SMEs already accepting digital payments reported a significant increase in business. Meanwhile, 54 per cent of SMEs not yet using digital payments expressed interest in adopting the technology, and 69 per cent admitted they are losing customers each week due to the lack of digital payment options.
Speaking to journalists during a media roundtable yesterday, Dalton Fowles, Mastercard country manager for Jamaica, said the findings align with shifting consumer preferences towards digital payment methods.
“No small business wants to see a sale walking through their door if they are not accepting digital payments,” he said.
According to the study, 88 per cent of SMEs that accept digital payments reported saving both time and money. Additionally, 81 per cent believe their business would not have survived if they had not adopted digital payments, while 75 per cent rely on digital payments to pay their suppliers.
“There is a narrative in the past that cash is king, and it continues to be king in the true accounting terms. But when you are running a small business, cash carries quite a bit of cost, and sometimes a hidden cost that people don’t understand. Sometimes you hear narratives about the cost for digital acceptance and so forth, but they recognise that it does save them time and money,” Fowles stated.
The study also revealed that SMEs place high value on trust and versatility in their digital payment providers. The most highly rated attribute was the ability to handle multiple payment types, cited by 90 per cent of SMEs that accept digital payments. This was followed by 87 per cent of SMEs that value provider trustworthiness, 86 per cent that said they wanted access to secondary benefits and services, while 86 per cent highlighted the ability to scale with the business.
The quantitative online survey was conducted in 14 Latin American countries and included 150 SMEs owners and directors in Jamaica.
It also revealed that only 41 per cent of SMEs are using fraud-monitoring services, and 39 per cent are implementing cybersecurity tools made available by their providers.
Underscoring the importance of trust for SMEs, Fowles noted that Mastercard, an American multinational payment card services corporation, leverages a suite of AI-powered tools to detect and prevent fraud, while also offering secure digital infrastructure and growth-oriented solutions to support small businesses.
By 2030, he said, the company would be introducing a framework, dubbed ‘digital by default’, which would tokenise transactions.
“What it means is that we’ll be able to authenticate every single transaction through a tool we refer to as a passkey, where we essentially use the biometric from your handset, for example, to authenticate every single transaction. And what that means is that, in the same way we have reduced fraud in the physical space, we intend to reduce fraud in the e-commerce space,” he said.
He added: “If you’re a microbusiness, you’re going to be able to say, for example, what’s the average ticket size of your transaction, typical velocity per day of transaction; and we’ll be able to flag those transactions and then ask for secondary authentication.”
Fowles also highlighted the large number of unregistered small and medium-sized enterprises operating in Jamaica, while unveiling Mastercard’s plan to onboard at least 50,000 microbusinesses in the formal economy in the next five years as a part of its inclusive growth agenda.
He said discussions are advanced and will comprise partnerships between public and the private sector.
“What we intend to do is drive scale, and we envision a world where a lot of these ‘solopreneurs’ are able to easily onboard, for example, and easily begin to be able to transact [business],” he said.
He noted that there are an estimated 425,000 small businesses operating across Jamaica, but only about 14,000 are currently registered. Further, he said a recent study also cited approximately 418,000 solo entrepreneurs in Jamaica.
“We believe that is essentially the next big wave, the next huge opportunity where Mastercard, through public and private partnerships, will pivot,” he said.
“We believe, as a network, we are uniquely positioned to continue to serve the evolving needs of the Jamaican SMEs. We provide seamless, secure and scaleable solutions to the market, obviously addressing the pain points as well through some of the cyber and fraud tools that we bring to our market through our partners, who then make those available to the small businesses.”