In 2004 my family and I moved to Fiji for me to lead a project to bring banking services to the un-banked in Fiji. It will remain one of the most amazing experiences of my (our) lives.
The project morphed into my life pretty quickly as the desire to good and do well entered my thinking. How could a big Australian bank make a sustainable difference. Not simply a donation or charity that comes and goes depending on who is signing the cheques, but a change forever to the way people saved, invested and borrowed money.
In Fiji (2204) over half of the 1 million population could not obtain a bank account either because the entry amounts were too high, they had no identification or there was no bank within a days walking distance. My colleague and good friend Sitiveni and I spent time in villages asking them what they wanted in a bank and eventually the solution of mobile banking - banks on wheels took hold. Simple bank accounts and microfinance delivered on the village doorstep.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and their wonderful expert on Rural Development, Jeff Liew, partnered with us to deliver much needed financial literacy. No point taking books to people who cant read and so Jeff and his team hastily developed a Village training program on the basics of savings, investing and borrowing.
To cut a very long story short the program has now spread to most of the Pacific and parts of Asia and morphed into a Bank wide program. The last piece of work I did was to develop a Bank on a mobile phone, turning phones into ATMs and EFTPOS in Cambodia. This enabled the very poor and financially excluded, factory workers to receive their pay safely and be able to send money back to their community safely and cheaply.
I got to speak at the World Bank; to the Scottish parliament, the Australian Government and was featured in the Financial Review Boss magazine. The recognition was grand and lovely but knowing that in Fiji, the Pacific and Asia the work lives on thru villagers having access to a safe and reliable bank account - what should be a basic human right - continues to give me daily satisfaction.
While I have formally left the world of banking the un-banked I have a deep desire to see more people have access. Spreading the word is one small part I can play.
So why this blog? I have spent the entire day on a mainstream Australian banking strategy and while the financial impact and the initiatives are exciting - they just dont seem to give me the same buzz as working for people who have no access to banking.
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