Users are increasingly moving away from traditional money remittance services in favor of mobile phone money remitters for sending funds to Fiji. This changing trend is highlighted in the Financial Intelligence Unit’s (FIU) 2023 annual report, which was presented in Parliament on September 2, 2024, by Attorney-General Graham Leung.
As Fiji’s agency for anti-money laundering, the FIU monitors financial transactions across 172 institutions in various sectors, including commercial banks, mobile phone companies, legal firms, and insurance companies. The report reveals that the FIU documented over 30 million transactions in its database by 2023, comprising Electronic Fund Transfer Reports (EFTRs) related to remittances to and from Fiji.
From 2019 to 2023, the total EFTRs surged in volume, increasing from approximately 1.5 million to 3.5 million. However, there was a notable shift in the methods used for fund transfers: transactions through traditional remittance services plummeted from 71 percent in 2019 to just 26 percent in 2023. In contrast, money transferred via mobile phones skyrocketed from a mere 4 percent of total EFTRs in 2019 to over 60 percent in 2023.
The FIU attributed this rise in mobile phone remittances to the growing consumer preference for mobile money wallets, which offer a more convenient and cost-effective means of sending money compared to conventional channels.
Inward remittances made up 92 percent of total EFTRs, with significant shares coming from Australia (47 percent), the United States (19 percent), New Zealand (18 percent), the United Kingdom (8 percent), and Canada (2 percent). Outward remittances primarily targeted Australia (22 percent), New Zealand (17 percent), the United States (7 percent), India (7 percent), and China (4 percent).