More financial projects

 BANK of Papua New Guinea is putting extra effort in rolling out financial facilities in the Highlands region after it was revealed that more than 90 per cent of the region was unbanked.

Recently, a mobile micro-insurance product was launched by the United Nations’ Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP) in partnership with the bank.

Governor Loi Bakani said the product provided by BIMA, a world leading provider of mobile-delivered insurance, aimed to provide insurance products to people in the Highlands region.

“Some of the products that are coming out like the insurance product and others, piloting of financial education in schools is targeting the Highlands,” Bakani said. 

“We want to pilot out some of these things up there so we can later roll it out to the rest of Papua New Guinea. 

“UN is doing a lot of infrastructure development up there, targeting especially in relation to road linkages so that it enables us financial institutions to go and provide services like bank agencies or 

any representation of financial service.

“Infrastructure is very important, and once that is available then you can put in all these other services.

European Union representative Maria Cristoba said the highlands region was where more than 50 per cent of PNG’s population lived.

“But if you look at the proportion of population that’s being serviced, it’s the least banked part of the country,” Cristoba said.

“With that understanding of it being the least banked, it has very difficult terrain and our support to BIMA both from the regulatory and advocacy support from the BPNG as well as the development community support from the EU and Australian Government with the UN, is to facilitate service delivery in the highlands because of those challenges.”