Sustained investment in communications infrastructure and digital financial products is strengthening the foundations of digital economies in the Pacific.

Driven by the desire to close the Pacific’s wide financial inclusion gap, a wide variety of stakeholders have channeled resources towards facilitating access to banking services, remittances and insurance as well as developing the tools and skills needed to capitalise on them.

Nonetheless, other elements of the digital financial ecosystem, such as e-commerce, have failed to keep pace.

In this focus note, UNCDF will adopt a more granular approach, assessing the opportunities and challenges for Pacific e-commerce actors at the platform, merchant and customer levels.