B.S.P LOOKING FORWARD TO BECOMING LARGEST INVESTOR IN S.I.

Bank South Pacific is looking forward to becoming the largest investor in Solomon Islands, said Chief Executive Officer Robin Fleming.

Mr. Fleming made the comments during his recent BSP familiarization trip to the Solomon Islands, in which he also met with Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare.

Asked what the future prospect will be like for BSP in Solomon Islands, Mr. Fleming said they see it as an opportunity to expand BSP services further.

“For BSP in Solomon Islands in particular we see it’s the opportunity for us to continue to progress our financial inclusion program. We’ve opened a large number of accounts in Solomon Islands, 20,000 accounts last year and that’s going to be a continued objective for the retail banking team to make sure we’re able to maintain account growth. Also to be able to provide additional cash agents, the in-store banking approach that Westpac has adopted, so that more people in those communities which don’t necessarily have full access to banking facilities are able to participate in the financial services industry.”

Meanwhile, the BSP CEO said BSP has seen potential areas in the Solomon Islands where growth is possible.

“So we see there’s combination of areas in Solomon Islands where there’s going to be growth; one is always developing and increasing transactional activity for retail customers and getting more customers into the banking system and the other is business opportunities. There’s potential for the oil palm industry with the new owners of New Britain Palm Oil or Guadalcanal Oil Palm coming in. There’s also potential we think for a lot of growth activity in Solomon Islands and we’ll be one of the larger investors in Solomon Islands.”