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From Pacific Business News Online, we have news on a conference on Micro-finance. There have been many recent posts on mobile phones and the impact they can have on the delivery of financial services. In the Pacific, it is key to unlocking the potential of our people. Delivery of these services should be a key benchmark for measuring the success of telecom sector liberalisation.
There is a great deal of interest to make this work in the Pacific:
IFC (International Finance Corporation) is the principal sponsor of Pacific Microfinance Week 2009, a week-long series of events, meetings and gatherings of a range of organisations and individuals that share an interest in promoting the provision of inclusive and sustainable financial services in the Pacific. IFC’s Access to Finance programme forms part of a regional Advisory Services program to improve private sector development in the Pacific. The governments of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand are IFC’s donor partners.
Events like these will hopefully generate interest and bring about movement. Improving access to finance is really one of those key areas that we should seek to strengthen expertise–it really is a key benefit that this technology can provide.
Two more months and then we'll know what the beast looks like
Until the announcement on July 17th of the 2nd round of telecom sector liberalisation, we are like the people in this picture, only able to guess at the parts of the elephant. We have already seen what competition in mobile means, and on that day, we will be given the road map for how Internet will advance in Fiji.
So, as we attempt to piece together what the elephant looks like, let’s take a look at what Dionisia has for us over at FijiLive:
The deregulation of international access, scheduled for July 17 this year, is phase two of the process. It will mean that any domestic reseller of telecommunication services may directly source its international bandwidth needs without going through FINTEL, as was previously the case.
Her article was very informative and helps us get a better understanding of how FINTEL is positioning itself with regard to future competition and government regulation. By getting out ahead of government calls for liberalisation of the international gateway they hope to avoid more serious measures that government might push.
FijiLive provides the back story:
In February this year, the Government approved a licence for Digicel to operate a mobile phone service in Fiji in October, bringing in competition to Fiji’s monopolised mobile phone sector.
In May, when asked about Digicel’s licence, Ricketts had told fijilive.com/business that Digicel (Fiji) was expected to get its licence after the Government and the operator “sorted out a few details”.
A month later, the two parties are still ‘negotiating details”.
Ricketts had also said then that Digicel hadn’t yet paid its $US10.25 million (F$15.44m) bid offer (following which the company would be issued the licence).
“Once these details are sorted out, they will pay that (the amount) and will get the licence,” Ricketts said in May.
Today, Digicel’s business development manager, Thomas Underwood said that the meeting was just closing issues.
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