Financial inclusion vital, Bakani says

 FINANCIAL inclusion is emerging as a priority for policy makers and regulators in the financial sector development, Bank of Papua New Guinea Governor Loi Bakani says.

He acknowledged commercial banks, micro-banks, savings and loans societies among others who continue to roll out financial literacy programmes across the country.

Papua New Guinea’s unbanked segment currently stands at 85.62 per cent of the total population.

Speaking at a workshop in Port Moresby last Friday, Bakani said BPNG has plans to reach one million more unbanked people in PNG and micro and small enterprises, with a diverse range of financial services this year.

He said 50 per cent of this reached would be women.

In PNG, several significant barriers restrict the number of low-income households that participate in the formal financial sector.

This include the high cost of serving poor customers relative to the revenues generated by small transactions and balances, the high cost of building a distribution system to acquire and serve low income customers and a lack of products and services tailored to the needs of low income customers deprive individuals, families and communities of the socio- economic benefits associated with financial inclusion.

The one–day meeting held last Friday aimed to establish as a road map for PNG to effectively reach the eighty five per cent of the population that do not have access to financial services. 

BPNG and Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion have been working closely with development partners and six working groups to facilitate implementation and achieve the outputs of the National Strategy 2014-15.