The UN Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) flagship Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme designed and supported projects to increase access to and usage of financial services for Pacific Islanders. All interventions were designed in such a way that all stakeholders involved were part of the solution.

UNCDF incentivised the development of:

• Enabling policies and regulations,
• Invested in financial literacy and
• Boosted the design of innovative financial
• Products that meet the needs of Pacific users

UNCDF and its partners took bold risks to test solutions successfully deployed elsewhere in the world in the comparatively smaller and dispersed Pacific markets.

Risks that paid off, and, incrementally, more and more people can use products that allow them to settle their bills, transfers money, save for retirement and insure themselves and their properties.

Just over a decade ago, the Pacific region had low levels of financial inclusion and no mobile money or agent banking services. Therefore, the potential for designing, testing and scaling these products and services models seemed high.

Over the following years, UNCDF and its partners joined hands with every major telecom and bank brand in the South Pacific to explore the potential of these services and their distribution.