Digicel (PNG) Financial Services Limited (DFSL) ‘CellMoni’ were invited to witness the launch of the third National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS3) 2023-2027.
Implementing the strategy is the Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (CEFI) in collaboration with the Central Bank (BPNG) and the Department of Treasury.
CEFI is the mandated organization implementing the National Financial Inclusion Policy 2019 since the first NFIS 2013-2015. Thereafter, its success followed with the second NFIS 2016- 2020.
The launch of the third NFIS3 2023-2027 was made on the 25th of April 2023 at the Hilton Hotel, Port Moresby in the presence of Bank of Papua New Guinea Acting Governor and CEFI Chairperson Elizabeth Genia and Ivan Pomaleu, Chief Secretary representing the Minister for Treasury, Ian Ling-Stuckey. Also present were senior members and staff of CEFI, representatives of stakeholders from both the private and government sector and Heads of financial institutions including Digicel’s Chief Executive Officer Colin Stone who is the Board Director of DFSL ‘CellMoni’.
CEFI’s Financial Inclusion Advisor, Saliya Ranasinghe presented a snap shot of the strategy at the launch. Key highlights included accessibility; to promote increased usage of financial services, effective usage; through prevalent barriers and, quality of usage; learning tools for financial competence and affordable financial services applicable to the different needs to reach 2 million of the unbanked population in PNG with 50% being women by 2027.
The event also commemorated the signing of the Institutional Commitment of Measureable Inclusion Targets i.e. i-COMMIT.
i-COMMIT is a set of commitments by Financial Service Providers (FSP) to achieve the financial inclusion targets contributing towards sustainable and inclusive ecosystem for economic growth in PNG. i-COMMIT is guided by the principles of Accountability, Competition and Transparency (ACT). By way of a signing, FSPs commit to partake in contributing towards the projections set in accordance to ACT and in line with the Financial Inclusion Targets (FIT) through the FSPs set timeline.
CellMoni pledged their commitment by signing the i-COMMIT where Mr. Stone said, “Being a part of the NFIS3 2023-2027 and witnessing various stakeholders and FSPs come together is a shared passion of Digicel.”
He further added that Digicel is about connecting the unconnected and ‘CellMoni’ enables customers the accessibility, and convenience to financial services provided from their mobile devices wherever they are in PNG. People’s expectations are about interconnectivity and CellMoni fits right into that with the NFIS3 2023-2027 addressing digital transformation and digital financial services for our people.