MoneyPACIFIC is a multi-agency project jointly supported by the Reserve Bank of NZ, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (which manages the New Zealand Aid Programme), and the Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs, in cooperation with the World Bank.

While current MoneyPACIFIC initiatives focus on improving Pacific peoples' financial knowledge and awareness, they also include efforts to improve the range of financial products and services available. The Project has been responsible for a key programme in this area with regard to the high transactional cost of remittances, which have been in the range of 15-25%. Phase one of the Project (the NZ-Pacific Remittance Project) has resulted in a number of remittance providers reducing their costs below 7%. This step-down in costs was facilitated in New Zealand by a regulatory change to the Financial Transactions Reporting Act in September 2008.

Currently there is a gap in the provision of relevant, easy to access financial information and advice to help Pacific peoples, which is impartial, jargon-free, not geared to sell products and is tailored to their personal circumstances. Last year we produced the first ever MoneyPACIFIC Calendar. It was made available through churches, schools and community groups. Pacific communities in New Zealand, Samoa and Tonga snapped it up. Feedback and support for the calendar has been exceptional, in particular the financial information and the interactive detachable sheet of reminder stickers were highlighted as particularly useful.

This year, following a successful competition to find the best photos to appear in the 2011 calendar, we have doubled the number produced, printing 70,000 bilingual copies in Samoan/English and Tongan/English. Each month on the calendar a financial / budgeting tip is provided and at the rear of the calendar the comparison of remittance costs by www.sendmoneypacific.org is printed. For the 2011 calendar, the Red Cross has provided important information about what to do in a disaster. Due to the quality of the competition photos received, we are able to provide two distinctly different calendars for 2011 - one featuring photographic images from the Samoan community (within NZ and Samoa) and one with Tongan images received from Tonga and New Zealand. The calendar aims to provide simple but important tips to increase Pacific peoples' financial knowledge and awareness. These are being expanded in a public awareness campaign (with a focus on remittances, together with tips about teaching children good money skills) running on New Zealand Pacific 531pi and NiuFM Radio Stations.

Developing Markets Associates (DMA), managers of the www.sendmoneypacific.org website, are also helping to raise public awareness of the MoneyPACIFIC project and 2011 calendar amongst Pacific communities in Australia.