Marshall Islands President Dr Hilda Heine has challenged Pacific finance ministers to accelerate efforts to improve financial inclusion, saying advances in connectivity and digital technology have created new opportunities to overcome long-standing barriers facing Pacific economies.
Opening the Forum Economic Ministers’ Meeting (FEMM) in Majuro Tuesday, Heine said the theme, Economic and Financial Inclusion in the Pacific, reflected both the challenges and opportunities confronting the region.
“This year, financial inclusion is more within reach than it has ever been, not because the challenge has grown smaller, but because our collective capacity to meet it has grown stronger,” she said.
Heine said many Pacific economies, including the Marshall Islands, remain fragmented, with people, businesses and public services spread across vast distances and often disconnected from global financial systems.
“Like many Pacific economies, ours is fragmented and does not operate at scale.
Our people, our businesses, and our public services are scattered across vast distances and, too often, cut off from the broader financial systems that much of the world takes for granted,” she explained.
She said the loss of correspondent banking relationships had deepened financial isolation across the region.
“After 2001, the world rightly moved to protect the global financial system. Laws such as the United States’ Bank Secrecy Act and the Patriot Act tightened the rules on how money moves across borders. We do not dispute the purpose; the integrity of the system protects all of us. But for small Pacific states, the consequences were severe.”
“The correspondent banking relationships – the very links that connect a small economy to the global one — were cut. Across our region, they fell by roughly sixty percent in a decade, twice the global rate,” President Heine told Ministers.
President Heine said compliance requirements designed to protect the financial system had become barriers for Pacific communities.
“Across our islands, we have faced a hard truth: the same compliance burden designed to keep the system safe had become a barrier that kept our people out of it. Distance was already pushing financial services beyond reach.
De-risking pushed them further still,” she said.
The Marshall Islands President said the situation had changed significantly with improvements in connectivity and payment technologies.
“Approaches that were impossible ten years ago are possible today. Connectivity has transformed. New low-earth-orbit satellite networks, such as Starlink, now reach households on the most remote atolls, closing the ‘last meter’ between a citizen and a functional financial service.”
“The cost of moving money has collapsed; modern digital rails can settle a payment in seconds, for a fraction of a cent, on a basic mobile phone,” she said.
President Heine said international standards and regulatory frameworks now provide opportunities for small states to participate safely in digital financial systems.
“And, just as importantly, the world has learned how to do this safely. Over the past decade, shared standards and best practices have emerged for providing oversight and ensuring compliance while using digital assets. This time, the requirements do not shut us out. With the right regulatory framework, even a small nation can meet them,.” she explained.
She said financial inclusion was no longer a question of feasibility.
“We can now turn toward bringing the economies of the Pacific closer: closer to one another, and closer to the wider world. That is the heart of why I am hopeful. Financial inclusion is no longer a question of whether it is possible. It is a question of which paths we choose, and how quickly and carefully we walk them,” the President said.
Heine said the Marshall Islands had already begun exploring digital solutions and would share more details during the meeting.
“In the Marshall Islands, we have not waited. We have explored digital approaches — built to international standards, with proper oversight.” she stated.
President Heine stressed that regional cooperation would be essential to addressing economic and financial isolation.
“But no single nation can solve this alone, nor should any of us try. Ours is one path. Many of you are advancing other paths — in mobile money, in digital identity, in national payment systems and regional settlement,” she said.
Heine said the meeting agenda addressed the major economic challenges facing the Pacific, including pressures on essential services, disruptions in key sectors and growing vulnerabilities in communities.
“My hope for this week is simple: that you bring forward the ideas already taking shape across our islands; that you speak candidly about what has worked and what has not; and that you leave Majuro more aligned – governments, regulators, banks, partners and private sectors together – to carry this work forward with clarity and purpose,” she emphasised.
She said financial exclusion was a regional challenge that required a regional response and urged immediate action.
“Because what I have described is not a Marshall Islands problem. It is a Pacific problem. It is one that the Forum Economic Ministers must rightfully challenge.”
“The tyranny of distance, the retreat of the banks, the exclusion of our people — these challenges are shared by every nation represented here. And so the opportunity is shared as well. A Pacific-wide problem is a Pacific-wide opportunity,” President Heine.
“We can not afford the luxury of delay. So I challenge each of us to shift from intentions to immediate results required to protect and advance our people today,” President Heine said.
