sada reddy : information exchange on microinsurance in fiji speech by mr sada reddy, governor of the reserve bank of fiji, at the “ information exchange on microinsurance ” in fiji, suva, 15 july 2010. * * * it is a pleasure for me to address the opening of this “ information exchange on microinsurance. ” first, let me extend a warm welcome to you all. tonight we have gathered leaders from the private and public sectors together in order to discuss an important topic in financial inclusion – microinsurance. from the ceo ’ s of insurance companies, to rural cooperatives of farmers, everyone here has a part to play in the development of this field, which will help create a more stable and secure fiji. as you all know the reserve bank of fiji continues to partner with key stakeholders of financial inclusion like the pacific financial inclusion programme ( pfip ), to extend financial services and financial literacy to rural and low income people around fiji. this event is another example of this strong partnership and represents some of the wonderful progress we have made together over the last year. the national financial inclusion taskforce turns five months old in three days, and has already been displaying some impressive results. exactly one month ago, nfit brought vijay mahajan, founder of basix bank and chair of the cgap executive committee to provide insight on the status of financial inclusion in fiji. further at the end of last month the asian development bank presented a comprehensive report it completed on the same topic to nfit. the report made obvious some areas in which we need to make reforms, and also offered some clear guidance on paths we can take moving forward. one issue the report exposed was that we currently have no standardized reporting format for microfinance, which means financial transparency is very low. in order to increase the transparency of microfinance institutions, and facilitate better performance monitoring standards, rbf and pfip collaborated to provide financial reporting training to 35 people here in fiji at the beginning of this month. this is an important step to building the local capacity here now, to ensure that microfinance initiatives in the future are both stable and sustainable. further, the nfit working group on financial literacy has designed a strategy and is busy implementing financial literacy into the national curriculum here in fiji, so all our children will have the basic understanding of money management they will need to succeed. scoping is also being done by pfip to conduct a national baseline

taskforce in february 2010 to drive and monitor microfinance and greater financial inclusion strategies and initiatives first developed at the workshop. the rbf governor is the chairperson. the nfit, as it is known, has also appointed three working groups to support its mandate. these working groups are responsible for developing and implementing national strategies in each of the areas of financial literacy, statistics and microfinance. the working groups are chaired by representatives from the taskforce, with the membership coming from the various stakeholders, including the public and private sectors and donor agencies. they provide quarterly updates on their progress to the nfit. a follow - up workshop is scheduled for november this year to take stock of progress made towards the targets set last year. given that the rbf was passed the baton by the stakeholders during the first workshop to drive the new direction with respect to microfinance and financial inclusion, it is our intention to see that we achieve what we planned to do. a heavy reliance will, of course, be placed on getting the ongoing collaboration and support of the banks, ngos, donors, private sector and government. ii. electronic money project ladies and gentlemen, an exciting means of extending financial and payments services in developing countries to the financially excluded is the use of innovative communication technologies and instruments such as mobile phones. the reserve bank has been monitoring such developments for some time and has been preparing the groundwork in terms of the policies and laws to safeguard the users. in june this year, the rbf successfully launched its “ e - money fiji project ” and established an internal committee known as the “ e - money taskforce ” to oversee the development of electronic money initiatives in fiji and related payment system developments. iii. mobile money the e - money fiji project initiative covers the introduction of mobile money transfer services in fiji. there is no question that this new service has the capability of expanding the reach and accessibility of financial services to the unbanked and rural areas. there are an estimated 750, 000 mobile users in fiji at this time covering 90 percent of the population. to date, the rbf has provided commercial licenses to both mobile network operators, vodafone and digicel, to launch their mobile money transfer services. vodafone took the lead and launched its m - paisa brand a month ago and had 50, 000 signed - up users as of last thursday, the 15th july 2010. digicel followed suit with its “ digicel mobile money ” launch last