The money is coming. Are the rails ready? BSP Financial Group CEO Mark Robinson came back from the Institute of International Finance meeting in Bangkok with a clear message for the region. Supply-chain diversification and the search for energy and strategic resources are a fresh tailwind for the South Pacific. He expects a new super cycle over the next five to ten years, driven by around US$25 billion of investment in large LNG, copper and gold projects, drawing investors from East Asia,...

By Mark Townley, Managing Director, Ideas2Outcomes & Artipi (Banking & Payments Strategic Advisory) - July 2026 Three numbers give key insights into the South Pacific's decade ahead. (1) US$20 to 25 billion, the combined capital investment Papua New Guinea's two flagship resource projects could represent over the next ten years. (2) Forty-three per cent, (43%) remittances as a share of Tonga's GDP, the highest dependency in the world, with Samoa fourth at 28 per cent. (3) Sixty per cent,...

By Mark Townley, Founder and Managing Director, Artipi Payments Advisory On 25 June 2026 the Reserve Bank of Australia opened the most consequential payments policy exercise in a decade. Its new Issues Paper launches the Review of Payments System Regulation, and unlike the targeted surcharging review that concluded in March, this one is deliberately broad. Amendments to the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 have widened the RBA's remit to capture payment systems and participants that...