PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

There is con­tin­u­ing adop­tion of dig­i­tal pay­ments in T&T as Visa con­firmed yes­ter­day that con­tact­less trans­ac­tions grew by 30 per cent dur­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Car­ni­val

In a news re­lease yes­ter­day, the pay­ment so­lu­tions com­pa­ny said all Visa pay­ment meth­ods dur­ing the Car­ni­val sea­son in Trinidad and To­ba­go, which cul­mi­nat­ed on Feb­ru­ary 16 and 17, 2026, in­creased by 30 per cent com­pared to last year’s event.

“Dig­i­tal pay­ments have en­tered a sus­tained growth phase in Trinidad and To­ba­go, fun­da­men­tal­ly trans­form­ing how lo­cals and vis­i­tors ex­pe­ri­ence ma­jor cul­tur­al cel­e­bra­tions. Ac­cord­ing to an analy­sis by Visa Con­sult­ing & An­a­lyt­ics (VCA), this year’s Car­ni­val al­so saw a more than 20 per cent rise in cross­bor­der trans­ac­tions com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year, con­sol­i­dat­ing this ma­jor cul­tur­al event as a pow­er­ful dri­ver of in­ter­na­tion­al tourism and dig­i­tal com­merce for the coun­try,” Visa said.

“The da­ta from Visa Con­sult­ing & An­a­lyt­ics con­firms that dig­i­tal pay­ments are re­shap­ing con­sumer ex­pe­ri­ences in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” said Jorge Salum, coun­try man­ag­er, Visa T&T, adding, “With con­tact­less trans­ac­tions in­creas­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly year-over-year, it is clear that both lo­cals and tourists are em­brac­ing the con­ve­nience, speed and se­cu­ri­ty of con­tact­less pay­ments. We are proud to sup­port na­tion­al ini­tia­tives that mod­ernise the econ­o­my, en­abling even the small­est ven­dors to keep pace with chang­ing con­sumer pref­er­ences through a safe and seam­less dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture.”

This is sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year that Visa has re­port­ed a rise in con­tact­less trans­ac­tions dur­ing the fes­ti­val, as last year it re­port­ed trans­ac­tions across all Visa pay­ment meth­ods dur­ing Car­ni­val 2025 in­creased by more than 30 per cent com­pared to the 2024 Car­ni­val with the VCA re­port­ing then that on­line Visa trans­ac­tions showed sus­tained growth with a more than 75 per cent in­crease com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year.

Visa added, “The surge in con­tact­less adop­tion re­flects a shift to­ward seam­less and se­cure pay­ment ex­pe­ri­ences, as this tech­nol­o­gy con­tin­ues to re­de­fine the coun­try’s pay­ment land­scape.”

Visa’s re­port has come just one day af­ter CIBC Caribbean an­nounced that from March 31, 2026, it will no longer is­sue or process cheques and bank drafts de­nom­i­nat­ed in Great Britain Pounds (GBP) as the bank not­ed elec­tron­ic pay­ments had be­come the norm.

In a re­lease on Mon­day, Deepa Bou­caud, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Per­son­al and Busi­ness Bank­ing at CIBC Caribbean said, “As glob­al bank­ing sys­tems con­tin­ue to mod­ernise, elec­tron­ic pay­ments have be­come the stan­dard for se­cu­ri­ty, speed and re­li­a­bil­i­ty. While we recog­nise that some clients have tra­di­tion­al­ly re­lied on pa­per in­stru­ments, this change al­lows us to align with the in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tices and pro­vide faster, safer al­ter­na­tives for send­ing and re­ceiv­ing funds.”

CIBC Caribbean closed the re­lease by urg­ing clients to use the bank’s on­line bank­ing and mo­bile app to send and re­ceive GBP wire trans­fers se­cure­ly with­in min­utes from any con­ve­nient lo­ca­tion world­wide as it stressed that elec­tron­ic trans­fers pro­vide en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty, im­proved track­ing and faster set­tle­ment com­pared to tra­di­tion­al pa­per-based in­stru­ments.