The financial Inclusion initiative by the Bank of Papua New Guinea, and its partners, has reached some of the rural villages in Jiwaka province.
After weeks of financial training, specifically on saving and budgeting money, thousands of villagers from Kartanim graduated at a financial inclusion mass graduation ceremony over the past weekend.
The majority of those that graduated were high-school students from surrounding villagers who were taught the basics of saving and budgeting money.
And swiftly after the graduation ceremony, 500 students opened bank accounts with financial institutions that were present at the graduation. These included Bank South Pacific, Peoples Microbank and Nationwide microbank.
The Central Bank, through the Centre for Excellence in Financial Inclusion, purposefully targeted school-aged children in order for them to develop a savings mentality at a young age.
The financial inclusion initiative has thus far graduated some 130,000 villagers, exceeding the initial target.
