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🇵🇬 Sending to Papua New Guinea

PG · PNG

PGK

FATF grey list   National format   SWIFT BIC required

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FATF Increased Monitoring

This jurisdiction is on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring. FATF does not call for enhanced due diligence on that basis, but asks institutions to take the listing into account in their risk analysis.

Required information

  • Account number

    Domestic account numbers vary by bank; BSP Financial Group (largest PNG bank) uses 10 digits. Other banks (Westpac PNG, Kina Bank, ANZ PNG) use 6 to 12 digit national formats. No IBAN.

  • SWIFT BIC

    Beneficiary bank BIC (8 or 11 characters).

  • BIC

    8 or 11 character ISO 9362 BIC; BSB-style branch identifiers also used domestically

  • Purpose-of-payment code (strongly advised)

    Free-text purpose; the resident beneficiary reports inbound receipts over K10,000 on BPNG Form-R2 (BOP-R2) at the Authorised Dealer

  • Beneficiary address

    Match the address template — partial addresses cause holds.

For your end users

Double-check the beneficiary's full name (no initials), account number, and bank SWIFT/BIC against what their bank has on file. International wires can take 1-5 business days and may be delayed by sanctions screening.

Last reviewed by GIB compliance on 2026-05-21. Reference material only.

  • Currency

    PGK

  • Typical settlement

    1-2 business days typical; longer for cross-border with FX or compliance review.

  • SWIFT BIC

    Required

  • Local clearing

    KATS — Kina Automated Transfer System (Bank of Papua New Guinea)

Account format

How beneficiary account numbers are structured for Papua New Guinea. Failure to match this format is the single most common reason wires are rejected at the destination.

Field Value
Format tier National format
Length Domestic account numbers vary by bank; BSP Financial Group (largest PNG bank) uses 10 digits. Other banks (Westpac PNG, Kina Bank, ANZ PNG) use 6 to 12 digit national formats. No IBAN.
Validation regex ^[0-9]{6,12}$
Example 1234567890

Routing identifiers

Which routing codes the wire-creation API call must include for Papua New Guinea.

Field Value
SWIFT BIC Required
BIC Required
Format 8 or 11 character ISO 9362 BIC; BSB-style branch identifiers also used domestically
Directory ↗ Source
Local clearing KATS — Kina Automated Transfer System (Bank of Papua New Guinea)

Address format

How Papua New Guinea expects the beneficiary address to appear on the wire. Free-form variations frequently trigger compliance holds.

  1. Recipient Full Name
  2. Street/P.O. Box
  3. Suburb
  4. City
  5. Province
  6. 3-digit Postal Code
  7. PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Field Value
Postal code Optional — validated against the format below when provided
Postal code regex ^[0-9]{3}$
Example P.O. Box 1234, Port Moresby 121, NCD, Papua New Guinea

Purpose of payment

Put the purpose in the remittance information (<RmtInf><Ustrd>) of the ISO 20022 wire-creation request, as the code format below describes. Requirement: Highly recommended GIB check: a missing or unexpected purpose is reported as a validation warning; the wire is not held.

Not yet confirmed

We have not yet confirmed this country's purpose-of-payment requirement against a central-bank or correspondent-bank source. Including a purpose is recommended. We update these guides as we confirm each country.

Non-standard element

For Papua New Guinea, the purpose is placed in <RmtInf> (remittance info), not the standard <Purp> element.

Field Value
Code format Free-text purpose; the resident beneficiary reports inbound receipts over K10,000 on BPNG Form-R2 (BOP-R2) at the Authorised Dealer
Authoritative source ↗ View source

Operational notes

Field Value
Currencies accepted PGK
Typical settlement 1-2 business days typical; longer for cross-border with FX or compliance review.
Banking holidays ↗ Calendar

Known issues:

  • FATF grey-listed as of 13 February 2026 (added at Feb 2026 plenary); apply enhanced due diligence per FATF guidance.
  • BPNG operates a managed FX regime with active rationing; chronic PGK/USD conversion backlogs reported since 2014.
  • No IBAN; account validation relies on BIC plus national account number, increasing misrouting risk.
  • K10,000 reporting threshold via Form BOP-R1 captures most cross-border commercial payments.

Common rejection reasons

Documented patterns that cause this country's banks to return wires. Universal reasons (sanctions holds, missing BIC) aren't repeated here.

Beneficiary name mismatch (initials, abbreviations, punctuation, or transliteration differences from what the beneficiary bank has on file).
Account number format error (wrong length, wrong check digits, or non-standard characters).
Missing or invalid SWIFT/BIC code.
Insufficient remittance information (unclear economic reason for the payment).
Sanctions or compliance hold (OFAC / EU / UN / local screening).
BPNG FX shortage causing PGK liquidity queues at Authorised Dealers; outbound non-PGK payments may sit in dealer queues for days or weeks.
Missing Form BOP-R1 supporting documentation (invoice, contract) for amounts over K10,000.
Purpose not on BPNG-approved priority list (BPNG publishes FX order priorities).
Payment to an unauthorised dealer (only BPNG-licensed Authorised Dealers may settle FX).

Validate before you send

Check identifiers before you submit. The IBAN check runs in your browser (format plus the ISO 13616 MOD-97 check digit). GIB's API checks the IBAN format for countries where an IBAN is required. The BIC lookup searches GIB's BIC directory and needs a dashboard login.

BIC lookup

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References

First-party sources — central banks, FX regulators, ISO registries. Always re-verify against these before pushing volume to a new corridor.

Disclaimer

These country guides aggregate information from central banks, regulators, and industry-standard references. Global Innovations Bank reviews them on a rolling cadence and notes the verification date on each page. Payment-corridor rules change between releases, so we cannot guarantee continued accuracy.

Always verify against the primary sources linked in the References section before going live in a new corridor. Re-check applicable sanctions lists (OFAC, EU, UK, UN consolidated, and any state-level requirements) at the time of payment, since designations shift between our refreshes.

For fintech partners on GIB's sponsor-bank rails, these guides do not replace your BSA/AML, KYC, sanctions-screening, or transaction-monitoring obligations under your program agreement with GIB.

Nothing in this material constitutes legal, tax, or regulatory advice, and wire-acceptance decisions remain at the discretion of GIB Compliance and the destination bank.

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