THE Bank of Papua New Guinea says retail electronic payment system (Reps) has processed over 24 million card transactions with a total value of K3.8 billion since its launching in July, 2019.
BPNG Governor Loi Bakani said this represented 1.3 million transactions with a value of K190 million each month.
Reps was the first initiative by the BPNG to offer digital payment services using plastic cards and mobile phones for more people and businesses to access financial services outside the main urban centres.
The first phase established a national switch, which now offered inter-linked services across all the automated teller machine (ATM) and Eftpos devices of financial institutions.
During the launch in 2019, the Bank South Pacific (BSP), Kina Bank and Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loans Society (NSCL) signed a multilateral agreement to link their ATMs and Eftpos devices to the national switch.
This allowed customers of these financial institutions to pay for goods and services, withdraw cash and carry out balance inquiries on their devices at any location that hosted their devices at a reduced cost.
Westpac, Nationwide Microbank Ltd (MiBank) and People’s Micro Bank Ltd (PMBL) later joined the national switch on Sept 2, 2019.
Bakani said Reps was progressing towards achieving greater financial inclusion, allowing safe, efficient and convenient digital payments in the country.
“It will enable smaller payment service providers to enter the market at a reasonable cost, thus promoting competition and consumer choice which in turn will lower the cost of payments to customers.
“Digital payments mean that people don’t have to pay additional costs to travel to a bank or ATM to access cash.
“Digital payments can be made using the mobile phone as well as receiving money through a transfer without the need to handle or deposit cash.”
Bakani said BPNG was working on a regulatory sandbox to explore FinTech innovations for better product and service offerings.
In a separate project, BPNG is installing a new central securities depository (CSD) system which will give PNG’s financial institutions, businesses and individuals the ability to invest in Government and Central Bank securities.
The new online service will be launched before the end of the year.
The National/ PNGeHow