The volume of ATM transactions has doubled in the last decade from 12.6 million per year in 2010 to 23.2 million at the end of 2019.

The revelation was made by the Reserve Bank Governor during his presentation to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights on the National Payment Systems Bill 2020.

Ariff Ali also highlighted that similarly, EFTPOS transactions have tripled since 2010, from 1.8 million transactions to 5.4 million at the end of 2019.

In the last five years the use of internet banking transactions grew by 109 percent. Over the same period the use of cheques fell by 57 percent.

In 2010, the RBF, with its limited licensing powers over payment systems, issued conditional approvals to Vodafone and Digicel to offer digital wallet services in their country through their M-PAiSA and Digicel Mobile Money products.

These digital wallet solutions allow customers to make person-to-person cash transfers, purchase goods and services from selected merchants, add to their Unit Trust investments and make a range of bill payments including town rates, LTA fines, etc.

Ali says since 2011, they’ve witnessed an eight-fold increase in the volume of mobile money payments, i.e. from 0.3 million to 2.3 million transactions in 2019.

Similarly, the number of customers’ actively using mobile money has grown over seven times to 150,000 customers at the end of 2019 from 20,000 customers in 2014.

In value terms, Ali adds payments totaling $71.1 million were processed through mobile money platforms in 2019 compared to around $13.1 million in 2014.

The value of electronic money in circulation has also increased significantly to $32.2 million at the end of 2019 compared to around $4.5 million five years ago.

The governor says since the introduction of FIJICLEAR in 2007, the transactions have increased seven-fold from around 20,000 transactions to over 140,000 annually.

FIJICLEAR is the country’s Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) which settles large value interbank and customer transactions.