Deepak Baran

Vodafone Fiji is a 100% locally owned entity that is continually committed to enhancing mobile connectivity for the people of Fiji. First founded in 1994, the organisation explores new boundaries within the world of telecommunications to offer all Fijians the opportunity to engage with the next era of mobile innovation. 

Deepak Baran, Vodafone Fiji’s Head of Financial Technology, oversees the strategic direction of the company's financial technology initiatives. Having been with Vodafone Fiji for over a decade, he is well-versed in a range of verticals on offer, including transit, mobile and value-added services the organisation offers to customers - most of which include financial technology. 

“We also do strategy formulation and change management, which is very critical,” he says. “We are looking at developing nations and what's happening around the globe and try to see and take some learnings and replicate that here in Fiji.”

Broadening financial inclusion in Fiji

Vodafone Fiji is working across these key emerging markets in order to boost its presence in Fiji, but also to offer greater accessibility to the nation’s people. It already offers a comprehensive suite of digital payment services through M-PAiSA, its flagship platform.

“Within M-PAiSA, customers can perform peer-to-peer transactions, money transfers, settle utility bills and pay for goods and services at merchants. They’re also able to access some of our co-services, which includes topping up their mobile phones,” Deepak notes.

Services like this are ultimately designed by Vodafone Fiji to close the digital divide and improve accessibility for underserved communities within Fiji. 

“One of the unique strengths for M-PAiSA is it's accessible across all types of mobile devices from feature phones to latest smartphones. It drives inclusiveness – every Fijian, regardless of their access to technology or traditional banking services, can participate in some kind of digital economy,” Deepak says. “We are bridging that gap between the digital world and the physical world.”

Protecting customers against financial crime

A significant aspect of Vodafone Fiji’s financial inclusion mission is to offer services and solutions in a safe and responsible way. Specifically, this involves protecting businesses and customers from financial crime, a significant cybersecurity issue that is unfortunately inevitable. 

“We use machine learning technologies to detect fraud and prevent real-time payments, which is completed via some of the implementation strategies we have in place to proactively identify any suspicious patterns, mitigate risk and basically enhance the overall security of digital financial services,” Deepak explains.

In order to strengthen its financial crime prevention, Vodafone Fiji has partnered closely with Hawk, a technology company that helps banks, payment companies and fintechs fight financial crime with AI, machine learning and fraud surveillance.

With Hawk, Vodafone Fiji has deployed its state-of-the-art anti-money laundering and counter-financing technology within M-PAiSA. This enables greater range of functionality for the organisation, whereby it can complete payment screening using the Hawk platform.

“We do transaction monitoring, customer due diligence, customer risk profiling and business risk profiling. It brings a new level of accuracy, transparency and efficiency to detect fraud and complete risk management,” Deepak says.

“This collaboration has made us commit further to the people of Fiji and our subscribers, especially the subscribers of M-PAiSA,” Deepak adds. “We want to enhance their resiliency against sophisticated crime, which allows us to offer confidence to the regulatory authorities as well. We have been able to level up our game in the financial crime area.”

A new era of mobile banking

Moving forward, specifically in the fintech sector, Vodafone Fiji is eager to continue expanding its solutions to better serve its customers in the region, but also across the Greater Pacific. 

“Our focus is to continue to drive digital transformation and expand our core business, which is telecommunication,” Deepak explains. “We want to improve connectivity and customer experience by further enhancing our M-PAiSA platform and introducing new features such as advanced payment solutions, expanding acceptance and cross-border remittance.”

He adds: “Harnessing the capabilities of someone like Hawk into our AI ecosystem enables us to better safeguard our customers. We want to ensure that we contribute meaningfully to our customers. At the end of the day, this impacts the economic development of Fiji and the Pacific region as well.”

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