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The Government has committed to making all payments through electronic channels, including all government salaries and social protection payments.

The Minister for Treasury, Patrick Pruaitch, today announced PNG’s membership to the Better Than Cash Alliance in Port Moresby, and said that both he and his Cabinet colleague, Finance Minister Mr James Marape, endorsed PNG’s membership of the Alliance.

This move now makes Papua New Guinea the first Pacific nation to join the Better Than Cash Alliance, committing to leverage electronic payments and increase security, transparency and convenience for its people. The Better Than Cash Alliance is a UN-housed alliance of governments, development organizations and companies that are committed to the transition to electronic payments as means to achieve the goals of empowering people and growing emerging economies.

“We are delighted to join Better Than Cash Alliance to accelerate Papua New Guinea’s shift to electronic payments, and thereby rapidly advance financial inclusion for all Papua New Guineans. Using digital tools like mobile and branchless banking will help people build savings while giving the Government a more cost-effective, efficient, transparent and safer means of disbursing and collecting payments,” said Mr Pruaitch.

Mr Loi Bakani, The Governor of the Bank of Papua New Guinea (BPNG), also welcomed the announcement, saying: “I strongly welcome the news that the Government of PNG has joined the Better Than Cash Alliance. This is a significant step in our national progress towards financial inclusion, which is one of the Bank of Papua New Guinea’s major objectives. Indeed, the Bank has established a dedicated Financial Inclusion Unit whose objective is to promote concrete activities nationwide and to coordinate the different initiatives that are under way.”