UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) has announced the partnership with Digicel Financial Services Limited (DFSL) “CellMoni” to support its effort to build a digital economy and a cashless society in the Sepik Region.
The collaboration makes electronic payment a reality. Financial inclusion is an important part of this drive especially those segments currently left behind, such as small holder farmers in the Agri Value Chain, women entrepreneurs and vulnerable others in the low income group of East Sepik and Sandaun Provinces where the grant funding is focused in as part of the Support to Rural Entrepreneurship, Investment and Trade (STREIT) project.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Resident Representative, Dirk Wagener acknowledged European Union, the funder of the STREIT project, and shared his experience working in Kenya which is very famous for one of its mobile wallets (mPesa). He hopes that Papua New Guineans cast the similar way.
Mr. Wagener said, “It is a fantastic opportunity to bring people into the financial system and those who have difficulty accessing formal banking sectors or where the banking infrastructure is missing.”
“It is even more so important taking to account what the COVID pandemic has done to us. It has done many terrible things to us but it has also worked as a wakeup call. It has shown us the limitation of traditional finance and banking systems and it has pushed us further to consider how we can use digital tools to stay connected, to keep our economies running, to keep our businesses running, to send some money to our wantoks. So CellMoni is a tool which can do this and many others things. It has the potential to make economies more inclusive to bring people into a formal financial economy that usually do not have the possibility to access it and it makes them less dependent on having the banking structure or banking system which is physically not present. So this will be a game changer starting in the Sepik region,” Mr. Wagener added.
Chief Executive Officer of Digicel PNG, Colin Stone, thanked UNCDF’s management and its staff, stating that, “Digicel is really excited to embark on this partnership and signing of this agreement is a very important milestone for Digicel’s CellMoni. This collaboration with UNCDF will support the deployment of a reliable and liquid agent channel and on-boarding 215 agents and over 100,000 customers in East Sepik and Sandaun provinces to Digital Financial Services.”
Mr. Stone commented, “Digicel and UNCDF have a shared passion for digital transformation to make mobile financial services accessible to everyone across PNG. Rural and remote areas of PNG have always been important for Digicel since the company started in PNG. This partnership is an opportunity to continue the work of the last 14 years - to connect the unconnected both through financial inclusion and digital transformation starting in Sepik provinces.”
Photo caption: Pictured at the officiating of the collaboration is UNDP’s resident representative, Mr. Dirk Wagener and Chief Executive Officer of Digicel PNG, Colin Stone.
