THE share of Fijians with savings accounts at commercial banks in the country is very low at 3.4 per cent overall, the recent Gender Inclusive Finance survey has found.
The findings, published in the Reserve Bank of Fiji’s (RBF) Gender Inclusive Finance Report, stated that only 1.5 and 1.7 per cent of adult women and men, respectively, and 2.8 and 3.1 per cent of young women and men have formal savings account. It also found, however, that the share of the population with the highest number of savings accounts are the under 15-year-olds at 7.7 per cent.
“A share of Fijians interviewed for the DSS20 (demand side survey 2020) indicated that they do not have savings accounts because they have no income left to save,” the report stated.
“However, it is likely that others do not save formally because of the low interest rates offered by commercial banks, proving not attractive enough to incentivise Fijians to save.
“For international banks, headquarter prudential requirements require banks to hold ample liquidity, which has also contributed to lower interest rate.
“Strong remittance flows into Fiji allow banks to maintain ample liquidity without needing to rely on domestic savings and hence institutions are not incentivised to offer more attractive rates.”
The report stated that the data collected from commercial banks showed women and men had similar number of savings accounts, each segment equivalent to 29 per cent of total savings accounts.
The value of savings accounts held by men, however, was higher than for women, with women saving on average 25 per cent less, it stated.
The report found that the same was true for term deposits, where the number of accounts was similar – 37 and 36 per cent of total for women and men, respectively – but the value of term deposits held by men was much higher.
“On average, women hold 43 per cent less in their term deposit accounts than men. Among the youth this gender gap is reversed, as young women and men have similar levels of saving and term account ownership, but the average value of term deposit is 16 per cent higher for female youth.”
These were part of findings of a gender inclusive fi nance survey conducted in 2023 that explored the supply of financial services to women and women-owned MSMEs in the country.
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Note: This article was first published under the headline: Low savings account in Page 13 of the print version of The Fiji Times dated Thursday, September 25, 2025
