Fintech & payments regulation in Fiji (2026)

The Government of Fiji officially launched its National E-commerce Strategy 2025–2029 with digital payments infrastructure as a central pillar, making Fiji the fifth Pacific Island Forum member to adopt such a strategy. The strategy aligns the NPS payment-system reforms with trade digitisation goals, specifically targeting SME access to digital payment acceptance.

Fiji published its first-ever National Digital Strategy, targeting 80% of key government services online, 80% digital inclusion, and 50% 5G coverage by 2030. The strategy explicitly positions mobile money and digital banking as enablers of financial inclusion for rural and outer-island communities, reinforcing the RBF's NPS framework.

The RBF announced the successful integration of Fiji's licensed mobile network operators—Vodafone M-PAiSA and Digicel MyCash—into the FIJICLEAR national payment backbone, enabling real-time 24/7 wallet-to-bank, bank-to-wallet, and wallet-to-wallet transfers. This was the first full interoperability between non-bank PSPs and commercial banks in Fiji, a milestone under the NPS Act 2021 licensing regime.

The RBF launched the new Automated Clearing House (ACH), the second and final phase of the National Payment System modernisation project (following the upgraded RTGS in November 2022). The ACH enables 24/7 instant interbank retail transactions with immediate fund availability, replacing the legacy batch-settlement model and directly underpinning digital-wallet interoperability.

The RBF published Fiji's third NFIS, making Digital Financial Services (DFS) one of five strategic pillars and setting targets for digital-payment adoption and expansion of licensed PSP agent networks by 2030. Building on earlier strategies (2010–2014 and 2016–2020), the NFIS 2022–2030 formally ties fintech development to financial-inclusion policy.

The RBF launched an upgraded FIJICLEAR Real-Time Gross Settlement system, replacing the original 2007 infrastructure. Processing approximately FJD 180 billion annually, the modernised RTGS forms the backbone rails for the subsequent ACH and mobile-wallet integration phases of the national payment system overhaul.

Fiji's comprehensive NPS Act 2021 and NPS Regulations 2022 became operative, formally activating the mandatory licensing regime for all Payment Service Providers offering digital wallets, QR-code payments, and other non-bank payment services. The RBF became the single statutory regulator for all payment systems, with five PSPs licensed under the new framework.

The NPS Regulations 2022 were published in the Fiji Government Gazette, specifying detailed licensing requirements, capital and conduct obligations, and consumer-protection standards for Payment Service Providers. This created Fiji's first formal PSP licensing framework, directly covering mobile-wallet operators and QR-payment providers.

Fiji's Parliament unanimously passed the National Payment System Act 2021, the first umbrella legislation governing all payment systems in Fiji. The Act gave the RBF statutory authority to regulate, license, and oversee payment service providers—replacing a patchwork of informal guidelines—and provided the legal basis for subsequent PSP licensing and NPS modernisation.

The Reserve Bank of Fiji issued its FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Guidelines (Financial Sector Development Policy Statement No. 2), providing a controlled live-testing environment for innovative financial products before commercial deployment. This made Fiji one of the earliest Pacific Island nations to establish a formal fintech sandbox, a pre-cursor to the legislative framework formalised in the NPS Act 2021.

Vodafone Fiji launched M-PAiSA, Fiji's first mobile money wallet, approved by the Reserve Bank of Fiji and targeting the roughly 45% of Fijians who were unbanked at the time. M-PAiSA pioneered mobile-based deposits, withdrawals, person-to-person transfers, and bill payments, won the GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked Award in 2011, and established the commercial model that later drove the NPS licensing framework.

The Reserve Bank of Fiji launched the FIJICLEAR Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system, establishing Fiji's first electronic interbank settlement infrastructure. This foundational system enabled real-time gross settlement for large-value transactions and laid the technological backbone upon which all subsequent digital payment modernisation—including mobile money, ACH, and interoperability—was built.