PGO! is an innovative tech company based in Port Moresby designed to help connect businesses and customers with a reliable digital on demand delivery system not yet seen before in Papua New Guinea (PNG).
Andrew Kitum, founder and Non-Executive Director, created PGO! with the desire and ambition to drive the digital revolution in PNG and he has done so with creating PGO! When launching the company, he knew he had to link up with a provider that would assist in driving scale, a partner that shared the same values and vision from a digital point of view in PNG. That’s when Andrew turned to Kina Bank and worked with the Digital team to introduce Kina’s leading Internet Payment Gateway (IPG) technology to PGO!
As a business, Kina Bank have long been committed to directing the digital future of PNG and identified e-commerce as a crucial aspect to the long-term success of the country. To power this commitment, Kina Bank partnered with a ground-breaking local fintech company, NiuPay. NiuPay was one of the first PNG based companies to offer a true end to end financial technology platform. The partnership between Kina Bank and NiuPay was designed to speed up the move towards a cashless revenue collection.
Kina Bank’s IPG platform provides customers and businesses alike with the peace of mind that when transactions are made online, they’re making their purchase with confidence. Kina Bank’s payment gateway ensures safe and efficient transactions making the process between customer and vendor seamless. By adapting this technology, it has helped Andrew and the PGO! team unveil their new app, which is a first to market in PNG.
As a tech start up Andrew and his team are driven by providing a true digital experience, being a born and bred Papua New Guinean Andrew said, “I’m trying to give back to PNG, I am originally from here but I’ve seen first-hand how long it is taking for our country to adapt and change to new technologies so I thought I’ve got to do my part to help drive this change.”
The aim of PGO! is to be a one stop on demand delivery platform, to help facilitate purchases and make it more convenient for everyone with delivery to their doorstep. Kitum has said “…A strong digital offering is what PNG needs; at the moment PGO! have 4 food vendors as part of the App and an additional 4 other vendors but the business is still growing, and as we grow, we aim to be the one stop platform for our customers seeking convenience and ease.”
Andrew says “For us we’re starting in Port Moresby with the aim growing our business and then we will be looking to go to Lae and other urban towns in PNG. Our aspiration is to
push towards the Pacific, we know there is so much potential in the digital space. The likes of Uber Eats or Doordash may not enter the market soon…for us we want to be the catalyst for growing the gig economy in the Pacific, we want to show that tech companies can be born in PNG and we’re hoping our business adds to the economy in a positive way but also bridges the digital divide in PNG.”
Kina Bank’s IPG platform is the first ion PNG to accept local bank cards from, Kina Bank, MiBank and ANZ, meaning customers have the freedom to browse and order what they want all whilst using a standard local bank issued card of their choice. Ivan Vidovich, Kina Bank’s Chief Transformation Officer said “We feel a sense of accomplishment here at Kina Bank, having taken our Internet Payment Gateway out to commercial customers and having it adopted by PNG born companies like PGO!. We take tremendous pride in supporting online businesses and we’re confident that providing a secure digital payments platform will help drive PNG’s digital innovation”.