Held on 26 July 2011 in Port Vila, and hosted by the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu, Pacific Island Working Group (PIWG) members convened to review past successes, as well as discuss the inclusion of pressing issues into their core set of activities for the coming year.

Pacific Island Working Group (PIWG) members convened to review past successes, as well as discuss the inclusion of pressing issues into their core set of activities for the coming year. The meeting produced several key results. First, the group agreed to make consumer empowerment a priority in the coming year. According to Governor Odo Tevi of the Reserve Bank of Vanuatu, there is an overall lack of consumer protection policy in the region, though several central banks have individually taken steps toward transparency and consumer protection. The PIWG asserts that its combined efforts will work to close this gap.

In other meeting news, PIWG made advances toward its goal of collecting more comprehensive data on financial inclusion in the region. As such, two PIWG members — Central Bank of Samoa and Reserve Bank of Fiji — will pursue a long-term grant focused on obtaining solid financial inclusion data. In addition to supporting the design and implementation of surveys in the aforementioned countries, this project would aim to facilitate the establishment of an agreed upon set of definitions and indicators that can be used across the Pacific, and will fall in line with internationally emerging standards in this area.

The PIWG was formed upon the request of the governors of six central banks in the region – Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste. The group shares similar financial inclusion barriers, including a very high unbanked rate, geographically dispersed islands with low density populations, and challenges related to physical and banking infrastructure.