Central Bank of Barbados Revises BiMPay Go-Live Date to June 12, 2026

The Central Bank of Barbados advises that the go-live date for BiMPay, the new national instant payment system, is revised to Friday, June 12, 2026.

The decision follows a thorough assessment of interoperability testing progress across all nine participating institutions. While the BiMPay infrastructure is stable, secure, and tested, the final stage of interoperability testing, which requires every participating institution’s system to communicate with every other institution’s system in real time, has taken longer than projected.

Speaking at a press conference today, Governor Dr., The Most Honourable Kevin Greenidge said: "The system is ready. What we are doing is making sure that every bank and every credit union is ready to connect to it reliably. We will not launch a national payment system until we are certain it works perfectly across every institution."

Binding milestones have been issued to all participating institutions, including a mandatory User Acceptance Testing completion deadline of April 30, 2026. The June 12, 2026 go-live date is firm. There will be no further extensions.

In the interim, the existing Automated Clearing House will continue to operate, and customers of financial institutions will experience no disruption to existing electronic payment services.

When BiMPay launches on June 12, 2026, it will offer real-time, 24/7 instant payments, the BiMPay wallet, QR code payments, alias and proxy lookup functionality, and Request-to-Pay services across all participating institutions.