Australia-NZ website helps Pacific people send remittances

[Stacey King]

ABC RADIO AUSTRALIA
Updated 31 March 2009
A new internet site has been set up by the Australian and New Zealand Governments to help Pacific Islands people send remittance money back to their home islands more efficiently after complaints from some Pacific communities in both countries over the high costs involved in transferring money overseas. The Send-Money-Pacific site is a joint project of OzAid and NZAid, which is aimed at helping Pacific people get the best value for money.

Presenter Bruce Hill
Speaker: New Zealand's Minister of Pacific Island Affairs Georgina Te Heuheu

HILL: Many Pacific nations have come to depend on remittances from their citizens living and working in more developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States. But the cost of sending money back to relatives in the islands has been a contentious issue. So the Australian and New Zealand Government aid organisations put their heads together to design the website, which was officially launched on both sides of the Tasman last week. New Zealand's Minister of Pacific Island Affairs, Georgina Te Heuheu, says the goal is to provide information which will let people find the most convenient service at the lowest cost.

TE HEUHEU: Pacific families who are often times, you know they're not our wealthiest families are having to bear quite a heavy burden in terms of the transaction costs sometimes and in some cases, up to $25 for every $100 remitted. I mean it's a lot of money out of a remittance they badly need at home and in these Pacific states and which hard working Pacific individuals in New Zealand and Australia having to bear. So what proceeded the website was last year a change in the law which allowed the financial institutions to set up a mechanism whereby a Pacific person living in New Zealand can go to a bank and through the aid of a card, say if it's Westpac, Westpac card, load the $200 onto the card, which is transmitted say into Tonga. The family at the other end have a card as well, which they can go to their EFTPOS or ATM machine and get the money. So the web site then is a mechanism which allows those who have access to it to see on a very up to date basis what the various financial institutions are offering, both in terms of transaction fee and in terms of time taken to transmit the money.

HILL: The SendMoneyPacific website is quite easy to use, I have it open in front of me, so let's take a look and see how it works. First we have to select a sending country, let's choose Australia. And now it lets me select from eight Pacific countries, PNG, Solomons, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Kiribati. Let's click on Tonga. Okay, now I have to option to see how much it will cost be to send either $200 or $500 - let's click on $200. And we wait a little...okay, there's a whole list of providers, how much they cost, how many outlets that company has in Tonga, how long it will take for the money to get there, how much the recipients will actually receive...let's order it by how much they charge...good lord, the cheapest one charges five dollars, while the most expensive is 35 dollars, that's a big difference. Georgina Te Heuheu believes if more people use the cheaper options they discover using the website, this may put pressure on more expensive service providers to lower their costs to stay competitive.

TE HEUHEU: Well I mean I suppose in the end, the user will influence the way the players offer these services and I guess that's what it's all about isn't it. It's basically you are improving the transparency of costs, speeding the process, and thereby stimulating competition among service providers. Users will in the end dictate I suppose where the businesses will go.

NOTE: We are putting up a direct link to this useful site on the HOME page of Banaban Voice. To learn more click on the SEND MONEY PACIFIC link...