NiuPay: How PNG’s pioneering AI tech start-up is transforming government

NiuPay is literally building out its own tech ecosystem and is about to play a behind-the-scenes role in the smooth arrival of PNG’s NRL team from 2028.

The PNG government wanted a better visa processing system ahead of the arrival of an NRL franchise in the country from 2028. Picture: NRL Photos

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The lot of a tech start-up is tough enough. It’s a constant battle to get good talent, the right tools and, of course, funding.

However, imagine running a start-up where you’re the only start-up. And there’s very little by the way of support or even the tech basics. It’s a bit like that for James Inglis, who is working on paradise tech, rolling out artificial intelligence applications that are helping to transform the PNG government.

His Port Morseby-based fintech NiuPay is literally building its own tech ecosystem in the country. And it is about to play an important behind-the-scenes role in the smooth arrival of PNG’s NRL team from 2028.

James Inglis, CEO of PNG's NiuPay.

NiuPay is behind a new AI-powered visa processing system it built and has just switched on for the PNG government, giving the Pacific island cutting edge tech as tourism starts to take off.

The bulk of tourism or work visas can now be processed in minutes, where previously average wait times were counted in weeks. By comparison, getting a basic visa to Australia can still take days.

Seven years ago, Inglis and his business partner Jason Kurdzinski (NiuPay's chief technology officer), had been mucking around building payments software in Brisbane. Inglis was working in mining, but kept being drawn back to tech.

Inglis had lived in PNG on and off as a child, and in 2018 a chance came up to help the PNG government centralise the revenue it was collecting through its consulate network. The two helped them connect to the global payments system and bring them online, and NiuPay was created.

A year later, and it became clear to both there was a bigger opportunity to help digitise the PNG government’s services. Inglis sold his apartment in Brisbane and moved to Port Moresby.

Several large Australian tech players had attempted to get into the PNG market through a fly-in, fly-out model, but without the local knowledge they struggled to make headway. At the same time, they were still trying to sell tech products with huge upfront capex spends that were essentially designed for the Australian market.

Tourism in PNG is growing at a fast rate.

“From 1000 yards away, the market may look similar to how things work in Australia, but when you look at the underlying policies and frameworks that enable these government agencies, they’re incredibly different,” Inglis, NiuPay’s chief executive officer, says.

Rather than go in and simply sell off-the-shelf tech to PNG, Inglis and Kurdzinski settled on software as a service as the right business model that would work for this market.

“That kind of flips the game on its head,” says Inglis. “It intrinsically links our success with the success of our partners in government. We’re getting paid if the government’s getting paid, and it also then often means that the government’s collecting more revenue and providing services to the people.”

The new visa project that went live in March is NiuPay’s most ambitious yet.

Previously, visitors were advised to get the ball rolling a month before they planned to visit PNG. Every visa was manually processed by public servants, along with supporting documents like itineraries or work sponsors, and with tourism taking off this was creating a backlog.

NiuPay’s cloud-based system can immediately analyse millions and millions of variables and make a call whether to approve or flag an application for closer scrutiny, Inglis says. It can currently process around 1000 applications a day.

While there is intense focus around the world on the potential for AI to displace workers, Inglis says a guiding rule in rolling out the new system was that no staffers will be impacted by the technology.

“What we’re doing is actually enabling them to actually work on things that’s far more productive within this space,” he says.

Public servants no longer have to manually assess thousands of documents a week themselves for the overwhelming bulk of cases. The focus can be on reviewing those visas that need closer attention.

The AI computing horsepower for NiuPay is a cloud-based system being delivered by Amazon’s hyper-scaler arm AWS using data centres in Australia. The data however is owned and controlled by PNG.

Real time processing: PNG deputy Prime Minister John Rosso. Picture: Chris Calcino

PNG’s deputy Prime Minister and Immigration Minister John Rosso says with more resource projects coming online and growing interest in tourism, there was a need to reduce friction at the borders for legitimate travellers.

“Real-time, data-backed decision-making allows us to streamline immigration processes while maintaining strong border controls — ensuring our systems are ready to support economic growth without compromising security,” Rosso tells The Australian.

PNG’s new NRL franchise is expected to be another boost for tourism, but running games will also need players and officials to be able to easily move in and out of the country.

When NiuPay started it had four staff, today it has around 40. At the current rate of growth, by the end of this year it is expected to lift to 60. NiuPay is now one of the biggest pure tech employers in Port Moresby, outside of banks, miners and telcos.

Inglis has begun to work with the PNG University of Technology to upskill students that can work at a high level, including AI tools, from the day they graduate. A year-long graduate program is about to be launched to bridge the gap.

More recently, it started working with the lands department to digitise land management systems, which underpin the nation’s land tax regime.

PNG’s land office had a tech system from a big Australian-based vendor, but it wasn’t rolled out comprehensively. Compounding issues were system inflexibility; staff weren’t trained on it; and customers didn’t use it. This only exacerbated the cases of title fraud, which meant tens of millions in potential tax revenue was falling out the system. NiuPay effectively replaced the system with a cloud-based platform. Today it’s generating millions more in revenue a year, with the only change being the tech underpinning collections.

As well as the revenue, the real world impact is significant. Previously a landowner would have to line up at the department to find out what they own and then go to another agency to make the payment, then go back to the original land department to have a physical receipt attached to your account. Now it can all be done in real time through the government’s website.

Inglis says being on the ground in PNG is critical to building trust with the government, particularly as more new AI tools are being rolled out.

“We’re pretty fortunate to be in a position we’re in here, and it’s not something that we take for granted. It’s a fairly rapidly moving industry, but it’s something that we’re making the most of,” he says.