How do landowner groups in remote parts of Papua New Guinea conduct their banking without the internet and without a bank branch in sight? Microfinance business MiBank has come up with an award-winning solution.

MiBank Managing Director Tony Westaway (left) receives the Innovation PNG Award.

Landowner groups, SMEs and women’s groups in remote areas of Papua New Guinea are potentially among the biggest beneficiaries of an award-winning product built by microfinance provider MiBank.

Its Mobile Corporate service was launched last year to solve a specific challenge: how do you authorise a transaction when there’s a group of people that have access to a bank account, they could be anywhere in the country (or overseas), and they don’t necessarily have devices with internet access?

MiBank’s Managing Director Tony Westaway says the solution was to use simple USSD cellphone protocols that could be used with a basic handset, allowing any signatory with cellphone connectivity to authorise a transaction.

Integration

MiBank’s team developed the technology in-house, and also integrated the service into the company’s MiCash mobile banking platform.

“We now have 548 landowner groups, women’s groups, SMEs that are using this functionality on their mobile wallet,” says Westaway. “Those accounts alone account for K2.8 million in savings, so it has made a difference to our business, but I’m hoping and wishing it’s making a big difference to our customers’ business as well.”

“It’s convenient, there’s easy access and transactions are secure. Signatories don’t all have to turn up at the branch and they don’t all have to turn up at the agent.”

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The three-step process begins when a signatory of a corporate, group or clan account initiates a transaction. The other signatories then receive an SMS alert asking them to authorise the transaction through the MiCash app, and the system seamlessly completes the request.

“The benefits are pretty simple to see,” Westaway says. “It’s convenient, there’s easy access and transactions are secure. Signatories don’t all have to turn up at the branch and they don’t all have to turn up at the agent.”

Financial inclusion

The solution was recognised at the Innovation PNG 2023 Awards, with judges describing Mobile Corporate as “a well-thought-out solution created for existing PNG conditions” and noting it had “particular relevance and use for remote areas where there is not adequate internet coverage, and for rural companies and groups.”

With about 120,000 of MiBank’s 500,000 customers already using mobile wallets, Westaway says using technology to build solutions for local conditions helps MiBank extend its outreach in PNG.

The rapid expansion of mobile connectivity, combined with innovations such as Mobile Corporate and digital ID cards from Digizen, are helping to expand access to banking in some of PNG’s most remote regions.

The Mobile Corporate service is already proving popular with women’s groups, farming cooperatives and landowner groups, in addition to companies and smaller businesses, Westaway says.