Women’s Micro Bank Limited, branded as Mama Bank is a licensed micro bank regulated by the Bank of Papua New Guinea (BPNG) as of May 2014. The bank is the 6th women-only focused deposit-taking licensed micro bank worldwide. It is also the first micro bank in PNG and the Pacific region, fully owned by women. Mama Bank provides more than 150,000+ customers (74% women) with access to affordable financial services to further their economic empowerment. The bank has six (6) Branches and 15 Mama Bank Access Points in the country. Mama Bank is the only financial institution in PNG with an explicit focus on women and their immediate families. The bank was set up as a subsidiary in April 2010, to provide Financial and Business Development Skills (BDS) training to women in poverty in Papua New Guinea, empowering them with enhanced income prospects for their families and communities, and thereby improving the quality of their lives.
Mama Bank’s key mandate is to offer affordable, customized, and accessible banking, by providing financial inclusion and financial literacy training services including educating a savings culture to the women of PNG. This aligns with PNG’s Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Policy and the National Financial Inclusion Strategy, which ensures all women in PNG have access to formal financial services.
Mama Bank Slogan
Women Empowerment
Inclusive development of family through women empowerment
Savings First
Savings should be the first expenditure of income, not the last
Access to Finance (A2F)
Credit facility to informal businesses and agriculture credit funds to those who are venerable and not able to get credit else where
Customers are predominately individuals from the informal sectors, living in rural areas who have never had the chance to access formal financial services. Rural or Community Banking is the main target area for Mama Bank with biometric technology. Mama Bank can reach far out to last mile areas with a branchless banking model through the hub and spoke, using the technology-driven biometric solution by way of Mama Access Points (MAP). Portable banking is implemented using a tablet, Bluetooth printer, and a scanner to perform all basic banking services, either at the MAP locations or of the MAP locations.
In early 2020, Mama Bank carried out a microfinance concept in PNG for rural and community banking, through the Self Reliance Groups (SRG) model in a group concept. It has proven its uptake in rural communities and urban pockets successfully with banking products and services reaching favorably to assist these marginalized populations.
The vision of Mama Bank is to see marginalized and disadvantaged families of PNG have an improved quality of life with social and economic security and justice. Its goal is to establish itself as a leading financial service provider, delivering quality income enhancement opportunities to all sections of women in PNG.
