PIWG Meeting Successful

PIWG Meeting Successful

CBSI Governor Denoton Rararwa (left below) and BPNG Governor Loi Bakani (right) cut the PIWG cake during the opening of the 10th PIWG committee meeting in Honiara, hosted by CBSI.

The Central Bank succesful¬ly hosted the 10th Pacific Islands Working Group (PIWG) Committee Meeting in Honiara early last month.

The PIWG had members from regional Central and Reserve banks from isalnd nations such as Fiji, PNG, Samoa, Vanuatu and the Solomons. Also in attendance were representa¬tives from stakeholders such as the Pacific Islands Financial Inclusion Program, US based Bankable Fron¬tier Assocaition, Commonwealth Youth Programme and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion.

The meeting was successful in that particpating members were able to resolve certain matters on Financial Inclusion activites and pol-icy issues. They were able to cover Consumer Protection issues, focus on improving data collection meth¬ods, stregthen the Micro-insurance action plans and also reviewed the PIWG prioritization areas for the next two years.

One of the highlights of the meet¬ing was the nomination of Solomon Islands to Chair the working group over the nextW two years.

Welcome to the first issue of our finan¬cial inclusion newsletter called Tavau*.

In this issue, we cover the progress of financial inlcusion so far in the Solomon Islands and look at some of the major activties underpinning the strategic goals set out for the country in its over¬all objective and targets for 2015.

Note that the renewed national fi¬nancial inclusion strategic goals were established as outcomes from the Na¬tional Conference on Financial Inclu¬sion held in November 2010. Our action plan for financial inclusion is guided by the vision statement: “Where all of Solomon Island’s men, women and youth throughout the country have the opportunity to be financially competent and have access to a full range of financial services that help them achieve greater financial security and financial opportunity.” It also has a defined goal that by 2015 an added 70,000 (30,000 are women) will have access to a variety of appropri¬ate and affordable financial services through safe and sound institutions.

One of the key challenges of assessing the impact of financial inclusion is the inadequate availabili¬ty of data and key indicators to measure progress.

Data measurement on financial inclusion is one of the issues the Pacific Islands Work¬ing Group (PIWG) under Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) is working on and as such Solomon Islands will bene¬fit from consultancy and peer learning under PIWG.

ALWAYS

THINK INCLUSIVE

National Financial Inclusion Unit

CBSI D/Gov Chairs PIWG

D/Gov Gane Simbe (L) - The new Chair to the Pacific Islands Working Group

Caroline Kanoko

Manager/NFIU

Solomon Islands will lead the region for the next two years in advancing finan¬cial inclusion activities under the Pa¬cific Islands Working Group (PIWG) on Financial Inclusion.

This came about after the appointment of Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) Deputy Governor, Mr. Gane Sim¬be, as its new chair for the next two years.

The appointment was made during CB¬SI’s hosting of the 10th PIWG meeting held in Honiara in February. Vice Chair for PIWG is the Reserve Bank of Vanu¬atu’s (RBV), Deputy Governor, Mr. Pe¬ter Tari Merakali.

Previous PIWG Chair holders were Sa¬moa and Fiji.

PIWG is a regional group af¬filiated with the Alliance for Financial Inclusion network, a global body that promotes access to financial services for the unbanked and unserved population of the world. The group aims at working togeth¬er to address the challenges faced by member countries and find policy solutions in order to enable financial ser-vices to the rural and the un¬banked.

Denson Denni

Supervisor/NFIU

The National Financial Inclusion Unit (NFIU) was established in 2011, by the Central Bank of Sol¬omon Islands (CBSI). The Unit is mandated to act as secretariat to the National Financial Inclusion Taskforce (NFIT), the group set up also by CBSI to plan and coordi¬nate course of actions and oversee strategies of the National Action Plan (NAP) on Financial Inclusion in the Solomon Islands.

NFIU reports to NFIT and to the CBSI Board, and is responsible in coordinating and expanding all fi¬nancial inclusion initiatives of the Bank for the country.

NFIU is manned by two full time officers.

*Tavau is one of the country’s unique Solomon Is¬lands traditional currency from Temotu Province. The traditional currency is unIque because of the deep red coloured feathers that are taken from a distinct bird in the province to craft it together.

Central Bank of Solomon Islands • P.O. Box 634 • Ph: (677) 21791 • Fax: (677) 21513 • Email: info@cbsi.com.sb • Website: www.cbsi.com.sb

New KYC requirements

benefit rural bankers

“Even rural market vendors can now esaily open bank accounts using new KYC requirements” Gov Rarawa’

Solomon Islanders especially those in the rural areas, can now easily open new bank accounts after the Anti-Money Laundering Commission in collaboration with the Central Bank of Solomon Is¬lands (CBSI) recently issued sim¬plified Customer Identification and Verification guidelines to all commercial banks.

Speaking during the recent Pacif¬ic Islands Central Banks meeting held in Honiara, Governor Den¬ton Rarawa stated that one of the barriers that prevents people from opening bank accounts is the requirement to provide offi¬cial identification documents like passports, drivers licences and birth-certificates.

“We know that most of our peo¬ple in the rural areas do not have these kinds of identification doc¬uments and so it is often difficult for them to open bank accounts”, Mr Rarawa said.

“The new KYC requirements al¬lows people, especially those in rural areas to open new bank accounts with minimum identifi-cation requirements such as ref¬erence letters from clergymen, or even village chiefs”, said Mr. Rarawa.

“This is one of our on-going re¬forms in the country in terms of relaxing the legal or policy barri¬ers that hinder our people from accessing financial services”.

More women attend financial literacy trainings

Financial literacy trainings conducted by all stakeholders including the National Finan¬cial Inclusion Unit (NFIU) for rural communities saw a re¬makable increase in women particpation, last year.

More than 60 percent of the total recorded attendees in 2012 were women, and ac¬cording to NFIU, this indicates a rise in response from wom¬en towards the oveall finan¬cial inclusion activities of the country.

The 2012 Q2 report showed that more than 7,000 women had attended some form of financial literacy training con¬ducted by stakeholders and NFIU. The records however are understated, and as re¬ported by NFIU, many stake¬holders were not able to sub-mit records. These numbers also did not take into account extra trainings conducted dur¬ing the end of year period of 2012.

The Financial literacy Com¬mittee is working towards im¬proving these area in 2013.

Women of Kolombangara, Western Province

Central Bank of Solomon Islands • P.O. Box 634 • Ph: (677) 21791 • Fax: (677) 21513 • Email: info@cbsi.com.sb • Website: www.cbsi.com.sb

STAKEHOLDERS UPDATE

NFIT

Westpac Instore & Mobile Phone Banking

Westpac bank is expanding its in store banking activities this year with Renbel and Western Province the next on target.

In store banking has already re¬ceived positive response and feed¬back from the public, particularly from users in Central Province. Currently, further installations are underway and will be activated in mid-2013.

Meanwhile, mobile banking to date now has around 175 clients set up since the end of January. According to Westpac, reports so far indicate that numbers of clients are increas¬ing each week.

Westpac says only basic services are set up at this point, but services will expand and improve, as time and technology allows.

This plus other activities such as workshops on basic budgeting skills have been offered by the bank as part for their financial inclusion ac¬tivities for the year as well.

Watch this space for more updates from our stakeholders.

Updates & Coming Events

• 12th - 14th Feb, 2013

Pacific Islands Working Group (PIWG) 10th Committee Meeting

• 19th March, 2013

Skype meeting for PIWG Sub Group - Country update on data measure¬ment progress

• 21st March, 2013

National Financial Inclusion Task¬force (NFIT) 8th meeting - 2013

COMMITMENT BY THE CENTRAL BANK OF SOLOMON ISLANDS

Maya Declaration

28th September, 2012

NFIT members in one of their meetings in 2012

AFI Global Policy Forum The Cape Town Commitments

The Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) hereby commits to provide leadership, ad¬vice and support to the Solomon Islands National Financial Inclusion Taskforce in achieving its goal set in 2011 to enable an additional 70,000 (of which 30,000 are women) unbanked and under-served citi-zens of our nation have access to financial services through coordinated efforts by year 2015.

We commit to embark on an inclusive data improvement for financial inclusion through a financial competency survey by 2012, to measure the current level of financial liter¬acy and competency in the Solomon Islands, and to collect data to produce measurable indicators in the AFI network by 2013.

We commit to champion financial education through close collaboration with the Gov¬ernment in our effort to integrate financial education into the existing Solomon Islands national school curriculum from Class 1 to Form 3 by year 2013.

Finally, we commit to ensure the provision of an enabling legal environment by imple¬menting the recommendations of the regu¬latory review completed in 2011, to provide for and encourage new innovative financial models such as mobile money services, vil¬lage based savings and microfinance institu¬tions, with the view to encourage expansion and diversification of financial services and products in the country.

Denton Rarawa

Governor

Budgeting Tip

Gov Rarawa with other regional Governors during the AFI Forum

Do Your Budget Now

And watch your

Savings Grow
ends

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