Finance co-ordinating unit up for five years

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The National, Monday 29th April 2013

 THE Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion (Cefi), which was launched by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill last Wednesday, will be funded by the Asian Development Bank with US$30 million (K65.6 million), AusAID (US$6 million) and the Papua New Guinea government (US$3 million).

It will not be a financial institution but a co-ordinating unit for financial institutions, and will last for five years from 2013.

This was announced by Governor  of Bank of PNG (BPNG) Loi Bakani, ADB country director Marcelo Minc, Nationwide Microbank managing director Tony Westaway and Microfinance expansion project specialist Madhu Moulick.

Treasurer Don Polye was also present during the announcement.

Bakani said Cefi was built on the success of Nationwide Microbank and Microfinance expansion project.

“We had an earlier project called the Microfinance expansion project, which was funded by the same financiers – ADB, AusAID and the government of PNG,” he said.

“We (BPNG) are the executing agency. That project actually ended in 2010, but that laid the foundation for microfinance business and microfinance activities in PNG.

“That led to the creation of a bank called Nationwide Microbank. It  was supposed to be a pilot, a lamp to try out different projects in Wau, Morobe province, and there was such a demand that Nationwide Microbank was created.”

Moulick said the concept of Cefi was promoted by the Microfinance expansion project.

“The whole idea is that Cefi will take the intiative of the Microfinance expansion project ahead. We are partnering with small business development corporation (SBDC) to do training for small medium enterprises (SMEs), she said.

“There are already a lot of financial inclusion initiatives in Papua New Guinea. 

“For example, we have church groups doing financial literacy programmes, we have different kinds of credit schemes, we have mobile products like MyCash which is delivered by Nationwide Microbank, we have BSP rural that has taken products out to rural areas.”