The company has signed an equity deal with PROVEN Group Limited through its wholly owned PROVEN Investments Holding Limited and will invest over $500 million during its first two years of operations.

“We are creating a new industry with innovative services that will support banks and businesses as they transition from cash to digital - it’s the start of a great voyage for the industry,” said founder and CEO Lititia Myers-Gray. 

Myers-Gray is the former CEO of Beryllium Limited.

“Our use of technology will be paramount…” she said in the company’s media release.

The leadership of the ECHE include Peter Bunting – co-founder and chairman of PROVEN Management Limited (PML), as well as Christopher Williams - co-founder and CEO of PML; Nerisha Farquharson, VP of Treasury and Private Equity – PML and Prescient Consulting’s Rochelle Cameron.

Williams, in speaking with the media declined to divulge the PROVEN’s stake in ECHE “at this time.” 

ECHE is operating in the same space as Beryllium Limited, Myers-Gray’s former employer, which is also in the cash movement and management business.

“As PROVEN continues to increase shareholder value and grow its private capital, we view the payment industry as the next frontier - the industry is in need of competition and future-proofing. Business success is a combination of capital and competence. Lititia is overwhelmingly competent in the space, and PROVEN has sufficient capital to support,” Bunting said in a media release. 

During its launch phase, ECHE will introduce a variety of agile cash management services and digital payment services. 

The company is presenting its focus on technology-enabled services as a differentiator to the local industry and is also aiming at launching its services to the “entire Caribbean” soon, ECHE said in its release.

With the global cash logistics market estimated at US$23 billion in 2021 and projected to reach US$24.63 billion by the end of 2022, the company said efficient cash management would involve integrating technology and artificial intelligence to support the growing need for safer solutions.

“In order to keep up with the pace at which the world is evolving, Jamaica needs innovation,” Myers-Gray said.

She added: “Not only do we need to diversify our businesses to incorporate technology, but we need to evolve our ways of working to focus more on the needs of our employees and nurture them as they seek to maximise their full potential - because building the individual can only help us build stronger businesses and a stronger country,” she said.