Moni Plus has bought a new core banking system, the software a bank runs on, before it has a banking licence. Managing Director Aho Baliki told Business Advantage PNG in April that the system would handle all back-end operations by mid-2026, with digital banking to be built on top of it later. The company has not said whether it met that date.
“We need to make sure that our [core] technology supports us in bringing new technologies on board,” Baliki said.
Heduru Moni Limited, which trades as Moni Plus, spent 2022 and 2023 weighing two ways to raise its capital base: a listing on PNGX or a commercial banking licence. Business Advantage PNG reported in April 2023 that Baliki was leading a review of whether to proceed with a listing planned for 2024 or apply for a licence instead. Exepreneur found no record of a listing, and in his 2026 interviews Baliki discusses only the licence.
Twenty-eight years of personal loans
Moni Plus began trading in 1998, making small personal loans, according to a 2018 report in The National. The Bank of PNG licensed it as a finance company in February 2006 under the Banks and Financial Institutions Act 2000, the same report said.
“We don’t give money for nothing,” founder Bernard Chan told The National when the company opened its Alotau branch in December 2018. “We are transparent.”
By 2013 Moni Plus had about 15,000 personal loan borrowers, according to both The National and Business Advantage PNG. The loans paid for school fees, medical bills and similar household costs, Business Advantage PNG wrote.
In January 2013 the Bank of PNG approved Moni Plus as a foreign exchange dealer, the second non-bank in the country to hold that licence in a business trading banks had kept to themselves since independence, The National reported. The online service covered 21 currencies and refreshed its rates every 60 seconds. Customers could get rate quotes and trade after normal banking hours, Business Advantage PNG reported.
“We never imagined the company would reach these heights,” Chan, then chairman, told The National.
Cymonz, the software firm that built the FX platform, says on its website that it sourced separate FX and payment providers so Moni Plus would not have to transact through local banks. Managing director David Kelso told Business Advantage PNG that year that PNG’s forex market had “traditionally been dominated by the big banks.”
By 2013 Moni Plus had also added an asset finance division for small and medium businesses, Business Advantage PNG reported. Its website now lists commercial secured lending, property finance, revolving credit, financier’s guarantees and term deposits alongside personal loans.
Growth on Moni Plus’ own figures
Aho Baliki, who holds an OBE, took over as chief executive in 2022. In June that year he told Business Advantage PNG that Moni Plus had more than 40,000 customers and 200 staff, that its loan book had grown more than 65% in a year, and that 2021 brought record revenue and profit.
“We are a market leader in finance, with a healthy loan book and growth of over 65 per cent in the past year,” he said.
Exepreneur could not verify any of those figures. Moni Plus published a 2023 annual report through Business Advantage International in July 2024, but its financial statements were not accessible for this article. No other public source gives the loan book in kina, bad-debt levels, capital adequacy or the cost of funds, and the Bank of PNG will see all four when it assesses a licence application.
About 15,000 personal loan borrowers in 2013 against more than 40,000 customers in 2022 suggests growth, though the two figures may not count the same thing.
Baliki said in April that most applications now come from repeat clients seeking top-ups on existing loans. Demand is partly driven by financial pressure on public servants and workers who rely on borrowed money, he said. A loan book built on salaried borrowers refinancing is exposed to late pay runs and to any change in how salary deductions are processed.
He positions Moni Plus as a boutique lender to individuals and small businesses, leaving corporate clients to the big banks. “Accessibility is central to our strategy,” he said. “Fast turnaround times remain a key differentiator, as customers expect decisions quickly.”
Baliki is also chasing businesses that supply resource developers, both directly and through subcontracting.
He said in 2022 that Moni Plus secures its loans with collateral and assesses risk using many years of its own lending data. Westpac PNG chief executive Brett Hooker told Business Advantage PNG in 2023 that “one of the challenges is to develop a lending framework that works in PNG.”
Moni Plus had five branches by December 2018, in Port Moresby, Lae, Mount Hagen, Kokopo and Alotau, according to The National. In 2022 Baliki said six more were planned over the following few years.
In April he named one that had opened, Goroka in 2024, and said two others were delayed by a shortage of office space and land. Two sites in Bougainville depend on finding premises.
“Instead of people coming into our branches, they should be able to check their balances on their phones,” Baliki told Business Advantage PNG in May 2025.
What a licence would change
“Unlike banks, we do not have access to low-cost deposits,” Baliki said in April, explaining why Moni Plus tells customers plainly what its loans cost.
Moni Plus funds part of its lending with term deposits, which start at K5,000 for terms of 30 days to two years, according to its website. Term deposits pay interest. Banks fund much of their lending from everyday transaction and savings accounts that pay little or none, so a lender without them pays more for every kina it lends.
A licence and a digital front end would let Moni Plus gather those cheaper deposits without opening a branch in every town. Both depend on the core system working first.
In 2022 Baliki said an IPO would let Papua New Guineans, local businesses and landowner groups own part of Moni Plus while adding to its capital. He described both the IPO and the licence as “essential to further strengthen our growth.”
The International Finance Corporation’s disclosure records a US$942,770 advisory project for Heduru Moni, approved in May 2019 and now complete, aimed at a sustainable growth strategy and better risk management. In 2022 Baliki credited the IFC with strengthening governance and compliance and said the company was “more than adequately ready” for the central bank’s minimum requirements. Moni Plus appointed an independent director, Ernie Gangloff, that November, Business Advantage PNG reported.
The IFC’s Kevin Gani told the publication in 2024 that its work with prospective banks is about making them “more bankable.”
Baliki said in 2022 that Moni Plus had built its technology with help from the IFC and other partners, and expected smartphones to speed up communication with clients. Four years later it is replacing the core system underneath that technology.
Baliki now says planning, consultations and external advisers are in place, and that Moni Plus is in the fourth year of a five-year strategic plan and on track for most of its targets.
The 2023 National Budget raised the tax rate on bank profits from 30% to 45%, and Kina Bank dropped plans to expand its branch network in response, Business Advantage PNG reported at the time. If that rate still stands, a licence would bring Moni Plus under it.
The Financial Action Task Force added Papua New Guinea to its grey list on 13 February 2026. BSP chief executive Mark Robinson told Business Advantage PNG he expected more scrutiny of international transactions and higher costs, while Westpac PNG chief executive Andrew Cairns said greylisting “might affect how people perceive the risk in PNG.”
Bank of PNG Governor Elizabeth Genia said success would be measured “by criminals being held to account and the proceeds of crime recovered.” Baliki said Moni Plus trains everyone from the board down on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules, and warned that greylisting could hurt clients who import and export.
The lenders that went first
Papua New Guinea had four licensed commercial banks in 2023, Business Advantage PNG reported that April. In 2021 the Independent Consumer and Competition Commission blocked Westpac PNG’s sale of its local business to Kina Bank on competition grounds, according to the same report.
“We need more banks because, without a shadow of doubt, competition is good,” former Nasfund chief executive Ian Tarutia told the publication in 2023. The Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loan Society, with more than 140,000 members, was also seeking to become a bank at the time, the same report said.
The Bank of PNG licensed TISA Bank and CreditBank PNG on 6 August 2024, after a two-year assessment, the central bank said. Applicants had to show strong financial standing and credible business plans. The state-owned National Banking Corporation, formerly People’s Micro Finance Bank, launched in April 2025, bringing the number of commercial banks to seven, the Post-Courier reported.
CreditBank had operated as Credit Corporation PNG for 45 years before it opened as a bank with four branches, Business Advantage PNG reported. Chief executive Danny Robinson said in 2023 that he expected to take at least 5% of the banking market within five years. In April this year he said 70% of new customers open their accounts online.
TISA Bank estimates that 75% of Papua New Guineans are unbanked, Business Advantage PNG reported in April. It offers app, USSD and WhatsApp banking plus a mobile wallet that needs no bank account, and is planning what it calls a “super app” for all financial transactions.
BSP’s Wantok Wallet runs on text commands and needs no smartphone, internet connection or bank account, according to the same report.
The three new banks spent heavily on core banking systems, the same publication reported in May 2025. BSP is running a K350 million modernisation programme to 2026. Kina Bank, which in 2023 became the first commercial bank to onboard retail customers entirely online, reported digital revenue growing about 35% a year and launched tap-and-pay through Kina Pei in 2025.
Kina chief executive Ivan Vidovich told Business Advantage PNG in April that the bank worked with the Bank of PNG to show that fully automated onboarding carries less risk than manual processing, and that the regulator was receptive. CreditBank says it has opened accounts in all 22 provinces from a four-branch network at launch.
Digicel’s CellMoni has about 1.6 million users, about 53% of Digicel’s customer base, and Vodafone PNG’s M-PAiSA wallet has been licensed for use in PNG, Business Advantage PNG reported in April. Paul Thornton, outgoing chief executive of the National Banking Corporation, told the publication that PNG is still a cash economy that needs physical branches alongside digital channels. The Bank of PNG published its first strategy to cut reliance on cash in 2008, according to the same report.
The IFC estimated the market for small business finance at K14 billion in a 2019 study, Business Advantage PNG reported in 2024, and small businesses are where Baliki has pointed Moni Plus.
Moni Plus’ core system was due two years after TISA and CreditBank opened. In 2013 Kelso said the FX launch meant Moni Plus could “offer some kind of service to most individuals and businesses in PNG.” Thirteen years later it is building the system it would need to compete with the banks for low-cost deposits, and Baliki has not given a date for a licence application in any published interview.
