$3BILLION worth of transactions was carried out in Fiji last year using mobile wallets.
This was revealed by Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF) governor Ariff Ali during his presentation yesterday to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Affairs on the RBF’s August 2021 to July 2024 annual reports.
The growing trend coincided with new developments in Fiji’s national payment system, which Mr Ali said included the enactment of the National Payment System Act, 2021, which came into force in September 2022, and the upgrade of the Real Time Gross Settlement software, which modernised Fiji’s digital payment infrastructure.
“Last year, $3b worth of transactions happened using the mobile wallet,” Mr Ali said, sharing some data that followed the upgrade.
“Of that, $2b was person-to-person, that is, someone asking you money from the village and you sending it over.
“Approximately $850m was person-to-business, and person-to-business is people buying things, of which half of that was using the QR Code.
“Business-to-person was somewhere around $52m and Government payment to individuals was about $15m, and one of the major payments that Government made was the start of school.”
Mr Ali said given the significant value of transactions going through the digital payment channels, they are being closely monitored by the bank.
“This is a sector that we also monitor as we all know lots of scams and other things also happens and this is something that we continuously work on with other institutions … to ensure that individuals are not buying into these things.”
Note: This article was first published on the print version of the Fiji Times dated June 10, 2025