NASSAU, Bahamas – The Bank of The Bahamas (BOB), will, from next month become the latest authorized financial institution (AFI) to begin providing SandDollar wallet services to customers in a targeted and phased roll out.
SandDollar is the digital version of the Bahamian dollar and like cash, it is issued by the Central Bank of The Bahamas (CBB) through AFI.
The CBB, providing an update on on the country’s digital currency, SandDollar, said it collaborated closely with BOB to allow the institution to pilot limited use of the original SandDollar app, before this deployment to customers.
The CBB said that during the months of April and May, it conducted “accelerated outreach” programs in some of the islands and that technical developments to extend proprietary wallet access to the Bahamas Automated Clearing House (ACH) via the SandDollar infrastructure were completed.
“This facility is set for release to the SandDollar digital wallet providers at the end of May. In the meantime, the first iteration of Wallet 2.0, which will permit user self-activation, progressed to beta testing, with a general release targeted for the middle of the summer,” it added.
The bank said it has completed developments to extend ACH top-up, redemption access to the proprietary SandDollar-enabled digital wallets and that digital wallet providers can begin activating this customer feature by the end of May.
“SandDollar wallet holders of all levels will be able to use this feature, once provided with a top-up address through their respective digital wallet provider. All mobile wallet account holders will be able to use the third-party transfer features within their online and mobile banking applications to send funds to their SandDollar accounts, regardless of wallet level or wallet provider.”
