Scholarship to contribute to digital identity in Fiji

Akash Anand is an up and coming project officer with HFC Bank in Fiji and a key player in extending the reach of digital finance in his country.

The cost of setting up infrastructure in remote areas means that many communities have never had access to formal banking services.

Through a new partnership with the mobile network operator Vodafone and UNCDF’s Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP), Mr Anand’s team at HFC have been able to expand their agent network tenfold and bring access to financial services to previously marginalised communities significantly expanding the bank’s customer base in the process. Having been encouraged to apply by a PFIP team member, it came as no surprise to his colleagues and family when he was awarded the 2019 Reuben James Summerlin Annual Scholarship.

The Reuben

James

Summerlin

Annual Scholarship was launched in 2016, in memory of PFIP’s programme manager Reuben Summerlin.

The scholarship honours Reuben’s passion for capacity building and education while contributing to PFIP’s vision of enabling low-income households to gain access to good quality, affordable and sustainable financial services and financial education.

Digital finance inclusion

It is awarded to exceptional employees from PFIP’s partner institutions, such as Mr Anand, to help them develop their knowledge and skills in digital financial inclusion.

Mr Anand is passionate about his work and sees great potential for digital finance initiatives in Fiji. “Despite various development challenges, Fiji has a more favourable financial inclusion rate than most developed countries.

“This makes Fiji a good testbed for

Akash Anand and colleague assist a customer opening a savings account in Korovou, Tailevu.

introducing innovative financial services, whether it’s through banking or insurance-related products.”

Lack of digital infrasturcure

He identifies the lack of digital infrastructure as an important barrier

to higher usage rates that is gradually being addressed through sustained investment in telecommunications.

As the digital financial services market develops further in Fiji there is an increasing need for technical specialists in digital finance.

The RJS scholarship contributes to addressing this by helping digital finance practitioners in the Pacific develop the tools and skills to capitalise on the opportunities presented by improved connectivity.

It does so by covering tuition fees for the Chartered Digital Finance Practitioners (CDFP) Certification offered through the Digital Frontiers Institute (DFI).

Before the course, Mr Anand had worked extensively on projects related to digital finance but confesses that his knowledge of the broader field was quite limited and had advanced significantly since he attended university.

His approach to the course was “to keep an open mind and take each course as a completely new subject”. Many of the concepts outlined in the courses proved to be real “eyeopeners” for Mr Anand as he “came to realise that many business concepts have changed over the years and are also applied differently in the field of Digital Finance.”

Financial Inclusion