What Jamaican dollar actually arrives in Jamaica when someone sends Australian dollars, at the live mid-market rate. We explain the process; we never recommend a provider.
| They send (AUD) | You receive at mid-market (JMD) |
|---|---|
| 500 AUD | 55,195 JMD |
| 1,000 AUD | 110,390 JMD |
| 2,000 AUD | 220,780 JMD |
| 5,000 AUD | 551,950 JMD |
Mid-market equivalents, not transfer quotes - the sender’s provider deducts its margin and any fees before the money reaches you. STRUCK 11:00 AEST · TUE 13 OCT.
A Caribbean island with outsized influence on world culture, Jamaica gave birth to reggae and keeps producing the fastest sprinters on Earth.
A gold saltire divides the flag into green triangles top and bottom and black triangles at the hoist and fly. The constitution has no flag provision, and the official interpretation is a sentence rather than a statute. The gold is read for the sunlight and the wealth of the country, the green for hope and agricultural resources, and the black for the strength and creativity of the people. That last reading dates from February 1996, when a committee on national symbols replaced an original one in which the black stood for hardships overcome and to be faced.
A continent pretending to be a country - Australia is the only nation that fills an entire continent, with most of its 27 million people clinging to the coast while the red-dirt interior does its own thing.
A blue field with the Union Jack in the canton, a large white seven-pointed Commonwealth Star below it, and the five white stars of the Southern Cross at the fly. Six of the big star's points stand for the states and the seventh for the territories; the Southern Cross marks Australia's place in the southern sky.
Jamaican amounts run into the hundreds for every Australian dollar sent, so transfers arrive as large-looking numbers on a modest send. The route from Australia is small, sitting on top of a much larger flow out of North America and the United Kingdom, with tourism supplying the rest of the island’s foreign currency.
The exchange rate is set on the sending side - by the service the sender chooses in Australia - so the most useful thing a receiver can do happens before the transfer: share the live mid-market rate on this page so the sender can judge the margin in their quote. How the money arrives in Jamaica determines any local receiving charges - bank-to-bank transfers can pass through intermediary banks that deduct handling fees.
Sending rather than receiving? The sender’s view of this corridor covers the same rate from the other side. The AUD/JMD converter page handles any amount. Receiving money from overseas explains the process end to end.
A remittance counter in Jamaica is licensed by the central bank one address at a time. The Bank of Jamaica publishes the register with its own running count, most recently two hundred and twenty-six remittance companies operating at four hundred and fifty-eight locations, and its application form requires a completed application for each location, with a separate documentary set for each sub-agent. Nine companies hold approval as primary agents. A recipient can therefore check the window they are being sent to against the register the central bank publishes.
The Bank's power over remittance companies is a delegated one. The Minister of Finance and the Public Service delegated it in February 2005 under the Bank of Jamaica Act, after money transfer and remittance agents were designated financial institutions by ministerial order in January 2002 and the Act was amended in 2004 to create the regime. In the Bank's anti-money-laundering framework a remittance agency sits in the same class of financial institution as a commercial bank.
What a recipient must present is set out in that framework as a list. Acceptable positive identification is a valid photograph-bearing driver's licence issued where the person lives, a current valid passport, a current valid voter's identification card, or a signed identity card from a known employer.
One further requirement catches people out because it is not a document at all. Beyond the identification, the institution must obtain a taxpayer registration number from every prospective customer, along with a photograph for its records, and there is no transition period. Tourists and people in transit are named as the class not reasonably expected to hold one. Behind the counter, Jamaica runs two domestic rails: the central bank's own real-time gross settlement system for large-value payments of a million Jamaican dollars and over, and a separately owned automated clearing house for retail credits.
Sources: Bank of Jamaica, list of remittance companies · Bank of Jamaica, remittance licence requirements, form RSP/002 · Bank of Jamaica, supervision of remittance services · Bank of Jamaica, Guidance Notes on the prevention of money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism, Jamaica Gazette Extraordinary, 14 June 2018 · Bank of Jamaica, payment systems
How much Jamaican dollar will I receive in Jamaica?
A little less than the mid-market figures above. The service the sender uses in Australia sets the rate and fees; local receiving banks in Jamaica can also apply their own charges depending on how the transfer arrives.
The sender asked for my details - what will they need?
Whatever their transfer service asks for on the receiving side - typically your full legal name and local bank account details in Jamaica. Give the name exactly as your bank records it; mismatches are the most common reason a transfer is delayed.
Why did I receive less than the rate on this page suggests?
A quote is the mid-market rate with the provider’s margin taken out of it. Because that margin is expressed in the rate rather than itemised, it is easy to miss and is usually the bigger half of what a transfer costs. On a bank-to-bank transfer an intermediary bank can also deduct a handling charge in transit.