Westpac Papua New Guinea has become a founding signatory to Papua New Guinea’s Empower Finance Code, a new financial-sector initiative aimed at preventing financial abuse and improving the safety of customers using banking and financial services.
The voluntary, principles-based code brings financial institutions together to develop a more coordinated approach to identifying and responding to financial abuse.
The initiative emerged from the Bank of Papua New Guinea’s Empower Finance Kibung, a community of practice established to help financial institutions build a common understanding of financial abuse and distinguish it from fraud and scams.
The distinction is important because financial abuse can occur when a person uses financial products, access or control over money to exploit another individual, often within family or personal relationships.
The code seeks to improve financial capability, consumer protection and the design of safer financial services while encouraging participating organisations to develop practical responses.
Westpac Papua New Guinea’s participation comes as digital banking and electronic financial services are expanding rapidly across Papua New Guinea.
Greater access to digital services has the potential to bring more Papua New Guineans into the formal financial system, but it also creates new risks and highlights the importance of consumer education, security and appropriate institutional safeguards.
Banks, superannuation funds and other financial institutions increasingly have a role not just in preventing conventional financial fraud but in recognising circumstances where legitimate accounts or services may be used to exercise control over another person.
Westpac’s signing of the code adds to a broader push towards financial inclusion in Papua New Guinea, where large numbers of people remain outside the formal banking system.
Improving trust in financial services will be an important part of efforts to increase participation.
For businesses, increasing financial inclusion can broaden the customer base for formal financial products, encourage electronic commerce and make it easier for small enterprises to transact and access finance.
The initiative also demonstrates increasing cooperation between Papua New Guinea’s central bank and financial institutions on issues that sit at the intersection of financial inclusion, consumer protection and digital transformation.
