Fintech company NiuPay is making headlines with its e-government solutions and a recent partnership with Kina Bank. Business Advantage PNG meets its Director, James Inglis, to learn more about the business.

James Inglis [left] and Kina Bank’s Greg Pawson [right]. Credit: Kina Bank

Port Moresby-based fintech company NiuPay is offering end-to-end online financial solutions that respond to the challenges of the PNG market.

‘This is the first partnership of its type in PNG, no one has ever been able to offer a service like ours.’

It got its foothold in the PNG market last year, when it successfully completed the website and e-visa payment system for the Immigration & Citizenship Authority.

‘This was our proof of concept and the government’s first toe in the water when it came to e-government, and we had an incredible response,’ NiuPay’s Director, James Inglis, tells Business Advantage PNG. ‘This spurred us to develop an even more robust and expansive payment system.

‘Since then, we‘ve been working on our partnership with Kina Bank and other exciting government projects, one of which is due to be announced in less than two weeks.’

Partnership

NiuPay and Kina Bank’s partnership was finally announced last month. The partnership entails a digital payment option developed for the PNG market, which allows businesses of every size to receive online payments for products and services securely.

‘This is the first partnership of its type in PNG; no one has ever been able to offer a service like ours,’ says Inglis. ‘There is a misconception when it comes to payment gateways – that all you need to do is integrate with the bank’s internet gateway. But that’s not the case at all.

‘The majority of government departments, SOEs and business also want to be able to improve their existing software, digital security and physical infrastructure solutions.  In partnership with Kina Bank, we have been supported to build a suite of such products which truly cater to the vast and varying needs of PNG.’

Helping SMEs grow

One of the greatest challenges that NiuPay has seen in the PNG market is that there is no straightforward process for SMEs to integrate easily into a bank’s payment portal.

‘Our biggest challenge at the moment is rapidly expanding to meet the demand that we are seeing during COVID-19′

Inglis says that in the next couple of months, NiuPay will roll out its ‘technology-neutral’ platform that will allow SMEs to integrate their businesses to an Internet Payment Gateway without having to spend thousands of kina, which ‘really prohibits most of the market from accessing the digital economy’.

NiuPay is also planning to offer workshops for SMEs towards the end of the third and fourth quarter of 2020, which will also be backed by Kina Bank.

Less talk, more work, more challenges

Credit: NiuPay

‘Our biggest challenge at the moment is rapidly expanding to meet the demand that we are seeing during COVID-19,’ says Inglis.

‘We think we’ve created something that will really enhance how business is done in PNG and can’t wait to unveil our next steps.’

The company has been busy during the COVID-19 crisis and has a range of products it’s looking to launch towards the end of 2020 and early 2021.

‘In this space, there is a lot of talk about what systems and businesses will provide to the market, but there is not a huge amount of action,’ Inglis observes. ‘We prefer our products to speak for themselves; we’ll come to the market when it’s right and have something that is meaningful.’