mHITs and Vodafone Fiji launch cross border remittance between Fiji and Vanuatu
Australian fintech and mobile remittance pioneer mHITs, in partnership with Vodafone Fiji, has launched a cross border remittance service between Fiji and Vanuatu. In a regional first, the service will allow instantaneous cross border transfers between Vodafone M-PAiSA Fiji and Vodafone M-Vatu Vanuatu mobile money services.
“We are privileged to be able to participate in this wonderful initiative,” said Harold Dimpel, Founder and CEO of mHITs.
“Together with our partners Vodafone Fiji and assistance from the UNCDF, we are able to make a very positive impact on the region by allowing money to move more easily,” Dimpel added.
mHITs has been working in the Pacific Islands for many years and has pioneered multiple first-to-market services in the region. This includes working with Digicel and Vodafone, but also via customer-facing services such as the multi-award-winning remittance service Rocket Remit.
“Vodafone Fiji will add the international money transfer service to the growing suite of services available under its M-PAiSA digital wallet,” said Shailendra Prasad, Head of Vodafone Fiji eCommerce & Digital Financial Services. M-PAiSA currently brings into Fiji around FJD 35m in personal remittances every month from countries overseas.
Vodafone Fiji operates its award-winning M-PAiSA platform as M-Vatu in Vanuatu, M-Tala in Samoa, e-Moni in the Cook Islands and M-PAiSA in Kiribati. It plans to interconnect all these markets for inward and outward money transfer to make it convenient and less costly to send money across the Pacific.
Funding and technical assistance provided by UNCDF helped to catalyse the development of the solution and prepare it for market deployment.
Under the Pacific Digital Economy Programme, UNCDF aims to work with public and private stakeholders to build an ecosystem in the Pacific that enables digital financial services to reach and improve the lives of last-mile communities.
The Programme is jointly implemented by UNCDF, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), with support from the European Union and Government of Australia.
UNCDF Country Coordinator for Fiji, Yenlin De Silva mentioned, “This is a great outcome from the Fintech Challenge we organised last year as this initiative will bring about market change and help reduce the cost of remittances in the Pacific.
“We are grateful to the Australian Government for supporting us with this initiative,” De Silva ended.
