Six days after widespread delays hit government salary payments following the launch of Barbados’ new real-time payment infrastructure BiMPay, the Central Bank of Barbados released a significant progress update Friday, confirming that more than 99 percent of the stuck payments have now been issued to employees. Only roughly 160 payments remain unresolved as authorities continue to iron out kinks in the transition to the new system.
Of the approximately 27,367 salary payments owed to workers across central government departments, the Barbados Revenue Authority, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the Central Bank confirmed that 27,206 have been successfully processed and deposited into recipients’ accounts. The situation across the island’s statutory corporations mirrors this progress, the report added, with the vast majority of public sector workers at those entities also having received their due compensation.
In its official statement, the regulator issued a formal apology to the small share of employees still waiting for their pay, acknowledging the significant personal and financial strain the extended delays have created for affected households. “We recognise the financial and personal distress this has caused, and resolving the remaining outstanding payments remains a top priority for our team,” the Central Bank noted.
The current backlog emerged when payments transitioned to BiMPay earlier this month. From the outset, the Central Bank has clarified that the problem does not stem from any technical flaw in the new payment platform itself. Instead, the issue traces back to incorrectly formatted payroll account information submitted by government employers, a discrepancy that slipped through the cracks under the nation’s old batch-based payment system.
Under the previous processing framework, minor account data errors could be corrected manually by intermediaries during batch processing. But as a real-time instant settlement system, BiMPay requires fully validated, correctly formatted account information to be included in payment files before they are uploaded to the platform, since transactions clear instantly once submitted. This operational shift created unexpected gaps when legacy payroll data was moved over to the new system.
Since the delays were first reported, the Central Bank says it has maintained constant, close coordination with commercial banks, government agencies, public sector employers, and other key financial institutions to identify and correct non-compliant account information that failed to meet BiMPay’s processing standards. “Where necessary, valid account information is being obtained so that outstanding payments can be processed without further delay,” the statement explained. “This is a significant operational change, and all parties are working to complete the remaining corrections as quickly as possible.”
Amid ongoing resolution efforts, the Central Bank emphasized that BiMPay itself has not experienced any operational disruptions. The platform continues to process regular interbank transactions as normal while teams focus on fixing the payroll data errors. “BiMPay remains operational and continues to process interbank transactions while the remaining payroll account corrections are being completed,” the statement added.
In addition to updating progress on salary payments, the regulator confirmed that government pension payments were scheduled for processing Friday, and that it is collaborating closely with relevant government bodies and financial institutions to ensure those payments are completed on time.
For public sector employees who have not yet received their scheduled salary, the Central Bank advised that they continue working directly with their department’s human resources or finance teams. These internal departments maintain direct communication lines with relevant financial institutions to verify and correct problematic payroll account details, speeding up the resolution process for individual cases.