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diverged widely with, for example, the average cost for a person remitting from Australia to Samoa currently almost twice that from New Zealand. This points to the importance of political engagement on the issue of the cost of remittances. Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have a keen wish to see these costs reduced for Pacific island communities, and there is a strong transTasman initiative to meet this objective. In addition, South Pacific economic ministers and Central Bank governors have agreed that they need to play a leading role in advocating the importance of financial education and to drive collective national actions to achieve a strong focus on financial capability within the Pacific region. A set of MoneyPACIFIC goals were agreed on in 2009 by the Pacific Islands Forum economic ministers to strengthen financial capability in the Pacific region over the coming decade. They include goals on financial education, access to basic financial services, and consumer protection. Despite a relatively limited budget, the New Zealand–Pacific Remittance Project worked because it brought together a range of public sector institutions (including the World Bank) and private sector interests that jointly believed the cost of remitting funds to Pacific island countries was unnecessarily high. Their combined effort meant that change became inevitable.
Notes 1.
A further impetus to look at remittance costs in New Zealand arose from the temporary worker migration program: the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme. This program, which began in 2007, each year draws up to 8,000 workers to New Zealand, predominantly from Pacific island nations, to work in the horticulture and viticulture sectors. Their earnings are often sent home as remittances or repatriated savings.
2.
A comparable trans-Tasman cost disparity can also be seen in the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database.