The next phase of Bank South Pacific’s (BSP’s) geographical expansion will create new opportunities for the region’s businesses and consumers alike, according to CEO Robin Fleming.

Staff at BSP’s Cook Islands head office.

Bank South Pacific, the Papua New Guinea-based bank, began investing offshore in 2006 and soon established a strong presence in Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

Then, in January 2015, it announced a major agreement to acquire Westpac’s operations in Samoa, Cook Islands, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Tonga.

A year on, necessary approvals have been obtained in each country, and the process of integrating these new operations into BSP is well under way.

Investing in the future

So what does this deal mean for business in these respective Pacific Island nations?

‘It’s about investing in the future of these respective economies,’ notes BSP’s CEO, Robin Fleming. ‘By doing so, you are endeavouring to ensure that their economic growth is going to be at a level that provides good returns.’

‘I think they sense that change in mind-set—for instance, in how we approach a business and try to understand its needs, or in the service we provide.’

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The central plank of BSP’s Pacific-wide strategy is to promote financial inclusion. Such an approach is most obviously of benefit to rural areas, where BSP can roll out the kind of mobile banking-based products to retail customers and SMEs that have been so successful in its domestic market.

Untapped potential

Using BSP EFTPOS in Tonga

However, BSP’s definition of financial inclusion is not limited to bringing more people into the formal banking sector. In fact its approach is as much about engaging with the under-banked as the unbanked across all market segments, and Robin Fleming believes there is plenty of untapped potential in BSP’s new markets:

‘It’s about recognising business opportunities that may well have been overlooked in the past because of the risk appetites of the former owners, or the level of capital in the country, or simply an approach to business which was more oriented to the bigger businesses in town.’

A Pacific business

Finally, although BSP may technically be a foreign investor, it is nonetheless a Pacific Island company—as its name underscores—and it shares its Melanesian heritage with several of its new markets.

Robin Fleming believes this gives BSP a big advantage over its multinational competitors:

‘That is something that customers and staff embrace when they are dealing with BSP in these particular countries. I think they sense that change in mind-set—for instance, in how we approach a business and try to understand its needs, or in the service we provide.’