Digitising Financial Inclusion for Montego Bay's Micro-Businesses
Paul Bèl Kay helped connect municipal priorities, corporate technology, banking access and community engagement to expand digital and financial participation among Montego Bay's craft vendors.
St. James Municipal Corporation | Montego Bay, Jamaica | 2024–2025
Paul Bèl Kay role: Strategic consulting, stakeholder coordination, partnership development and programme implementation support.
Harbour Street Craft Market vendor onboarding session, with Carl Gordon (Mastercard Jamaica), Violet Palmer (Managing Director, Paul Bèl Kay), Coral McLennon (President, Harbour Street Craft Market), and His Worship Richard Vernon (Mayor of Montego Bay).
The Challenge
Montego Bay's craft and informal-vending economy faced interconnected operational and financial barriers.
Heavy reliance on cash constrained vendors' ability to serve card-dependent customers and limited the municipality's opportunity to strengthen transparent revenue collection. Many micro-business owners had little or no access to suitable formal banking products, digital-payment infrastructure or business-development support.
At the same time, fragmented regulation, inconsistent operating conditions and low visitor visibility restricted the sector's ability to grow.
The Strategic Response
Paul Bèl Kay supported the formation and coordination of a public-private partnership involving the St. James Municipal Corporation, Mastercard, National Commercial Bank, Digicel, the Jamaica Business Development Corporation and the Tourism Product Development Company.
The intervention combined technology, financial services, training, device access and regulatory support into one coordinated pathway for participating vendors.
Digital Payments
Mastercard's Tap on Phone technology enabled participating vendors to accept digital payments using NFC-enabled smartphones rather than traditional point-of-sale terminals.
Banking Access
National Commercial Bank introduced a micro-business banking product designed around the needs of participating vendors, including digital banking and card access.
Device Provision
Digicel provided NFC-enabled smartphones to support vendor participation in the digital-payment pilot.
Business Capability
The Jamaica Business Development Corporation supported digital-literacy and financial-management training to help vendors use the technology more confidently.
Enabling Environment
The St. James Municipal Corporation worked with the participating organisations to improve the regulatory and operational environment around the pilot.
The Outcome
By February 2025, approximately 180 craft vendors, around 40% of Montego Bay's craft-vendor population, had been onboarded to the digitisation pilot.
Participating businesses gained the ability to accept digital and card payments, access tailored banking services, use modern payment-enabled devices and participate in digital and financial-literacy training.
Women represented 83% of the participating micro-business owners, extending the programme's reach to a group disproportionately affected by financial exclusion.
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