There are only two banks in Fiji that have interoperability with M-Paisa or Vodafone, while one bank has it with Digicel in terms of MyCash.
This was according to the Governor of Reserve Bank of Fiji Ariff Ali during a webinar earlier last week.
He said a lot of merchants did not have an online payment option and the reason for this was because it was quite costly.
“One of the announcements made in the budget, Reserve Bank is providing almost a $1 million for this financial year as well as the next financial year so that small MSME’s can join into what we have Vitikart or platforms that is setup by Vodafone,” Mr Ali said.
“The other important thing is, a lot of people do not trust digital platform because of the risks of fraud.
“In terms of what we are doing in this space, I think first and foremost is that we did not have a payment system law whereby we had an oversight, so this was approved in parliament last year.”
He said this had now given them a formal oversight of payment systems which Mr Ali thought was very important.
“The other important thing is we continue to work with other central banks in the region as well as AFI as well as PFIP a regional Fintech regulatory sandbox in trying to see because of the size and economies of scale,” he said.
Mr Ali added it was best to do carry out this work on a regional scale rather than Fiji because of its size.
“We continue to talk to banks, as well as the telco companies to increase the interoperability between banks and mobile companies and this is an ongoing thing.
“And I think, lastly, we are spending a lot of time in terms of creating awareness in terms of digital literacy.
“We actually run a TV program with the FBC and some of the other stakeholders to create awareness in this area.”
