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Good practice Imported

Vodafone Fiji M-PAiSA — Mobile Money for Financial & Digital Inclusion

Fiji · Suva · See the Fiji profile · See the Suva profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 9% 96/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Launched in 2010, Vodafone Fiji's M-PAiSA mobile wallet became the country's leading digital-payment channel, reaching 632,123 users (two-thirds of Fijians) by 2022. In 2023 peer-to-peer transfers hit FJ$782.4m, and in 2024 M-PAiSA linked to Fiji's national payment system.

632123
M-PAiSA/MyCash users (2022)
341.7 %
Growth in value of peer-to-peer transfers (2023)
782.4 FJ$ million
Value of peer-to-peer transfers (2023)
12 million
Peer-to-peer transactions (2023)
316.5 %
Growth in peer-to-peer transaction volume (2023)
Vodafone Fiji M-PAiSA — Mobile Money for Financial & Digital Inclusion

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Vodafone Fiji Limited
Period
2010–present
Keywords
mobile money, financial inclusion, digital payments, telecommunications, interoperability

Context

Vodafone Fiji launched the M-PAiSA mobile wallet in 2010, with approval from the Reserve Bank of Fiji (RBF), targeting the large share of Fijians — especially in rural and outer-island communities — without access to a traditional bank branch. In 2011 M-PAiSA won the GSMA Global Mobile Money for the Unbanked Award.

Results

According to the RBF's 2022 annual report, 632,123 people (more than two-thirds of Fiji's population) used M-PAiSA or the rival MyCash wallet that year. Growth accelerated further in 2023: the value of peer-to-peer transfers rose 341.7% to FJ$782.4 million, on 12 million P2P transactions (up 316.5%), driven by government bulk disbursements, remittances and everyday payments. On 14 October 2024, the RBF integrated M-PAiSA and MyCash into FIJICLEAR, Fiji's national payment-system backbone, enabling instant transfers between mobile wallets and bank accounts across all providers — a step the regulator described as opening banking access to people who lack a traditional account.

Conclusions

A 2024 peer-reviewed study of Fiji's banking sector (2012–2024) found a statistically significant positive association between digital-banking adoption and financial inclusion, while cautioning that the relationship is correlational rather than proven causal — a reminder that mobile-money uptake alone does not guarantee full financial inclusion for outer-island and low-income communities.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

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Own resources / municipal budget

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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