There is no question that this new service has the capability of expanding the reach and accessibility of financial services to the unbanked and rural areas. There are an estimated 750,000 mobile users in Fiji at this time covering 90 percent of the population.
To date, the RBF has provided commercial licenses to both mobile network operators, Vodafone and Digicel, to launch their mobile money transfer services. Vodafone took the lead and launched its M-PAiSA brand a month ago and had 50,000 signed-up users as of last Thursday, the 15th July 2010.