Page 30 - IB May 2021

Banking Banking

Kina CEO and Managing Director, Greg Pawson is excited about the bank’s pros-
pects in Fiji.

DELVING INTO DIGITAL

KINA FINDS ITS SWEET SPOT

By Samantha Magick gives us access to that corporate market here, which in PNG
is really important because that’s where the foreign exchange
The entry of Papua New Guinea’s Kina bank into the fairly is,” says Pawson.
competitive Fiji market later this year will bring a range of The appeal of the Fiji business he says, is that it’s an
digital products that should stimulate further innovation in end-to-end business, and that while they’ll be “playing in all
the sector and more choice for customers. sectors of the market”, it’s the small and medium sized enter-
Kina announced it was acquiring Westpac’s PNG and Fiji prises that are really calling out for growth. “That’s our sweet
businesses last year, marking the end of the Australian bank’s spot. That’s absolutely where we play. And a lot of that, that
long history in both countries. Westpac (then the bank of New banking offer is around digital services, digital platforms,”
South Wales) opened its first branch in Suva in 1901 and began Pawson says.
operating in Port Moresby nine years later. Those countries Pawson says it is important that the businesses are acquired
and their economies are dramatically different now. through an in-one-line transaction. “Fiji and PNG are the
Kina has been through a similar process with another same infrastructure platform, and much of the services that
Australian bank, ANZ, quite recently. In September 2019 Kina they provide are consistent across both markets. So we didn’t
finalised the partial transition of ANZ’s balance sheet to its want to kind of unsettle that, we wanted to try and keep the
books, when it bought the deposits and loans for ANZ’s retail, business intact.”
SME and commercial customer base in PNG. “When we complete the settlement, the only thing that
While ANZ continues to operate in PNG with a focus on you’ll notice that’s different, that will be a new name above
corporate customers, in particular Australian businesses the door. Everything else in terms of systems, processes,
operating in the country, the transaction gave Kina a national infrastructure, people, branches etc., all stays the same.”
footprint and branch network across PNG. Development of digital platforms and channels and part-
In contrast, the Westpac acquisition in PNG and Fiji will see nership is one of Kina’s strategic priorities. This has seen the
Kina take over the business as a going concern says CEO Greg introduction of a new point-of-sale (POS) network, Pawson
Pawson. says. “Our terminals are super quick, global best practice,
“The reason we were keen to acquire Westpac PNG was they do lots of things, you know, tap and go and connect to
because they’re bigger in the corporate sector than we are. It merchant software. That is the leading probably POS tech-

30 Islands Business, May 2021