People sending money to the Pacific Islands pay some of the highest remittance rates in the world. Changing money transfer providers can save migrants, scholars and workers sending money back home to the Pacific Islands as much as $A25 for a single $200 transaction. This can equate to as much as $1,300 a year for those sending money weekly. Imagine what a difference that amount of money can make to families back in the islands.
SendMoneyPacific (or SMP) is the official money transfer comparison service for the Pacific Islands and is supported by the Australian and New Zealand governments. SendMoneyPacific is not a remittance or money transfer provider. Rather, SendMoneyPacific is a free, online service aimed at reducing the cost and inconvenience of sending remittances from Australia and New Zealand to 11 Pacific island nations.
In August 2021, diaspora and international engagement specialists CulturalPulse brought the website back online under a new Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) program called Empowering Migrants through Pacific Remittances (EMPoweR).
A key feature of the revamped SendMoneyPacific is that information on the cheapest and fastest remittance rates is now available in community languages, including an instructional video on ‘How to Use SMP’ recently published in Fijian, Tongan and English. This information and the video will shortly be made available in Samoan, Bislama (Vanuatu), Tetun (Timor-Leste), Kiribatian, Niuean and Cook Islands Maori.
Stay tuned for the SendMoneyPacific Mobile App which will be launched in the coming months in all eight community languages, in addition to English.
To find your best match for sending money to the Pacific Islands, subscribe to www.sendmoneypacific.org and follow SendMoneyPacific on Facebook
