Guyana recorded GDP growth of 62.3 per cent in 2022 and has sustained double-digit expansion since, driven by offshore oil revenues that have reshaped its fiscal standing entirely. Its citizens carry smartphones, access online banking portals, and operate within a government apparatus that speaks frequently about digital transformation. Yet on any given weekday morning, the queues outside commercial banks in Georgetown stretch past the door and onto the pavement. People are there to withdraw cash, because cash remains the dominant currency of daily life.

This is not a rural phenomenon confined to hinterland communities with limited connectivity. It plays out in the capital, in Berbice, in Linden. Hardware stores turning over millions of Guyanese dollars weekly often do not accept card payments. Petrol stations, among the busiest commercial points in any economy, frequently post notices that only cash is accepted. Even among supermarkets, the picture is inconsistent: some have integrated point-of-sale terminals, others have not, and a number of foreign-operated grocers appear to have made a deliberate choice against electronic transactions altogether. Consumers adapt by carrying cash in quantities that would concern most financial security advisers.

The commercial resistance is not uniform in its causes. For small traders and market vendors, there is a genuine cost argument. Payment terminals require capital outlay, software licensing, and maintenance. Staff require training. For a business operating on thin margins with limited technical capacity, these are real barriers and not easily dismissed. That justification, however, becomes harder to sustain when applied to medium and large enterprises with established infrastructure and accountancy functions. At that scale, the reluctance appears to be more habitual than economic.

Infrastructure presents a separate constraint. Internet connectivity in Guyana remains uneven. In regions where bandwidth is unreliable or speeds are insufficient, digital payment systems become operationally impractical regardless of willingness. A terminal that times out during a transaction, or a system that cannot process payments during outages, creates friction that businesses and consumers both want to avoid. Until connectivity is consistent across commercial zones, digital payment adoption will remain patchy in the regions most in need of it.

Consumer scepticism compounds the problem. A significant share of the population distrusts digital transactions, with concern centred on cyber fraud and the vulnerability of savings held electronically. This is not irrational: fraud is a documented risk, and in a country where financial literacy programmes have not reached all demographics equally, caution about digital systems reflects lived uncertainty rather than technophobia. Merchants share versions of this anxiety, expressing concern over chargebacks, transaction disputes, and the perceived exposure that comes with maintaining digital records of income.

There is a policy route through this. The government has made public commitments to digitisation across both state and private sectors. Those commitments need operational teeth. A phased approach tied to business licensing offers one mechanism: in the first instance, high-volume sectors such as petrol stations, hardware suppliers, and large supermarkets could be required to provide electronic payment options as a condition of licence renewal. This targets the businesses where cash dependence is most visible and where the cost argument for non-compliance is weakest. A subsequent legislative phase could extend that requirement to businesses above a defined revenue or employee threshold, with transition periods built in to allow preparation rather than punish it.

The case for moving in this direction is not abstract. Businesses that process payments electronically reduce their exposure to theft, simplify reconciliation, and generate the kind of financial records that support credit applications and tax compliance. For consumers, the benefits are more immediate: reduced risk from carrying cash, faster transactions, and access to payment histories that have practical value. These are gains that compound over time.

Guyana is already integrated into the global economy at the level of its oil sector. That integration has not yet reached the everyday transaction. The gap between the country's macroeconomic position and the mechanics of buying a bag of cement or filling a tank with fuel is real, and it will not close without deliberate structural intervention. The infrastructure exists, in part. The policy rationale is clear. What is required now is the will to act on it.

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