Meet some of Papua New Guinea’s most innovative large businesses
A record number of corporations entered the 2026 Innovation PNG Awards this year, with the shortlists announced earlier this month in Port Moresby. From a digital platform for strata titles to a system to streamline coffee exports, we consider the five projects shortlisted for this year’s corporate category.
TISA Bank is one of the shortlisted candidates for the 2026 Innovation PNG Award for Corporate Innovation. Credit: BAI
The 2026 Innovation PNG Awards celebrates businesses that have developed Papua New Guinean solutions to PNG problems. The Innovation PNG Award for Corporate Innovation invited nominations from businesses with 10 employees or more, differentiating it from the Innovation PNG Award for Small Business.
The judging panel for this year’s Corporate Innovation Award managed to narrow down the 32 entries received to a shortlist of just five that will vie for the top award on 3 June.
We take a close look at the projects below.
Revolutionising strata titles
NiuPay’s Digital Strata Title Platform was developed for the purpose of operationalising the Strata Title Act and Strata Title (Management) Act of 2022.
“Legislation alone does not issue titles,” says NiuPay’s founder James Inglis. “Without an operational platform capable of actually creating, registering and issuing strata titles under the new Acts, the reform could not take practical effect.”
The platform issued PNG’s first ever digital strata title on 26 March, marking the moment the Strata Title legislation “moved from statute into practical effect,” Inglis says.
“For the first time in the country’s history, an individual unit within a multi-unit development can be individually owned, individually titled, individually mortgaged, individually sold.”
Solutions for coffee growers
The Coffee Industry Corporation (CIC) was shortlisted for not one, but two, digital platforms – with both its Green Gold Card (GGC) System and its Coffee Export Management and Facilitation System (CEMFS) capturing the judging panel’s attention.
The Green Gold Card introduces a new way of capturing, verifying, and managing farmer, cooperative and buyer information in real-time. Thanks to the system, the CIC can digitally register growers, track coffee movements and link production data directly to individual farmers and groups.
The card has the potential to become “a national digital backbone” for farmer identification, traceability and market transparency across PNG’s coffee industry, says the CIC’s Brian Manny.
In the future, he says, “the GGC platform could be expanded to integrate mobile payments, digital extension services, farm‑gate price reporting and real‑time production dashboards for policy makers.”
Meanwhile, the CIC’s Coffee Export Management and Facilitation System connects multiple stakeholders – including the CIC, exporters, freight forwarders, the PNG Customs Service and the National Agriculture Quarantine and Inspection Authority – on a single platform.
The system has “significantly” improved efficiency, transparency and coordination across the coffee export value chain in PNG, according to the CIC’s Rex Muritawa.
“Looking ahead, CEMFS can be expanded to integrate with other national and international systems, including banking platforms for seamless digital payments, customs systems for automated clearance, and logistics providers for end-to-end shipment tracking,” says Muritawa.
Innovation in finance
Two registered financial institutions also made it onto the shortlist: TISA Bank and the Nasfund Contributors Savings and Loan Society (NCSL).
TISA Bank was nominated for the QR payment capability integrated within its Yumi Pei mobile wallet, enabling small and medium-sized businesses to accept cashless payments using QR codes.
The QR payment capability “has strengthened TISA Bank’s position as a technology-driven financial institution committed to financial,” says Saamrat Dutta, Head of Corporate and Institutions, Marketing, Branding and Communications.
Meanwhile, NCSL has introduced Adhoc Remittance, a digital solution that simplifies how its 150,000 members remit funds into their accounts. By leveraging their Adhoc Remittance unique reference numbers, members can now generate secure transaction details directly through the MyNCSL Member Online portal.
This innovation eliminates the need to physically visit a bank, ensuring faster, safer, and more convenient deposits, according to Gila Ebenosi, NCSL’s Head of Digital Service & Call Centre.
Special awards announcement event
The Innovation PNG Award winners for 2026 will be announced at a special awards breakfast on 3 June at the Hilton Hotel, Port Moresby.
The event will feature a keynote address from Peter Williams of Deloitte’s Centre for the Edge, who is the chair of this year’s judging panel.
The awards, which are sponsored by Kina Bank (Major Sponsor), Vodafone PNG and Moni Plus, are an initiative of the Port Moresby Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Business Advantage International.
You can register to attend the announcement by contacting POMCCI directly, either by email at frontdesk@pomcci.com or by phone on +675 7200 0000.
