People living and doing business in Fiji can now transfer funds between their mobile money wallets and bank accounts.
M-PAiSA and MyCash users can transfer money in near real time from their banks into their mobile wallets and vice-versa, reducing the need to carry cash, following yesterday’s launch of phase three of the upgraded national payment system (NPO).
All commercial banks are covered in the scheme.
Speaking on behalf of those banks, ANZ Fiji Country Head, Rabih Yazbek noted today’s ‘go-live’ is “a nod to how far Fiji has come in terms of digital payments.“
“In Fiji there’s 300 islands that the population is dispersed across and there is just no way that the banking sector can have branches in all those locations, so this is a big step forward. And the way I look at the NPO go live, [is that] every single transaction from a wallet into a bank account or the other way, is one less cash transaction that needs to take place in the economy and that’s huge. That’s a really big impact for us. In a busy year we do 30,000 hours in overtime counting cash which is a poor use of everyone’s time.”
Vodafone Fiji’s Digital Financial Services and eCommerce, Shailendra Prasad said the ability to seamlessly move money from bank to mobile wallet and vice versa is a “real game changer because now it provides full integration.”
He encourages people to take advantage of the service, and notes it should open up other banking products, such as loans, to smaller businesses.
“When everyone is connected and the money moves faster in the economy, then there is more economic activity, it creates more jobs, it creates more opportunities. A lot of people when they deal in cash, they don’t really have a trail of their transactions, how much they have earnt, how much they have spent, and when you go to financial institutions for a loan they have no way to substantiate how much they have earnt and spent. With digital payment systems they will now have a digital trail of transactions so it will provide certain insights into their flow of spending so when they go into a financial institution they can have a credit profile or credit rating.”
The Governor of the Reserve Bank, Ariff Ali agrees it should create opportunities for the underbanked.
“What I would suggest is that small businesses keep a bank account so that the money goes into the bank account, so the banks can see, ok we have this resource coming in, … ok we have this much of revenue, and based on their revenue, and based on their profits, then they can start lending, so I can see that is a positive.”
Ali says the next upgrade of the national payment system will involve standardised QR codes, followed by the roll out of the national digital ID- which could take up to three years to complete.