Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Money in PNG

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Papua New Guinea

Hi, I am after advice on the best way to access money in PNG.

The LP says that there are ATMs in the places we are going (Goroka, Madang and Wewak) but I imagine it's not a good idea to rely only on these. How much cash would people recommend taking for a three week trip? Is it worth taking traveller's cheques or are they not worth the hassle?

Thanks in advance!

Amy

all 3 places u mentioned atm machines are reliable,easy/travellers cheques give you added security but take a long time to process inside banks,lot of paperwork.poor exchange rates +commissions taken.(at both ends)in png take lots of small notes as once you get outside major centres,people cant((wont)change big notes/impossible to answer how much to take as i have no idea what you want to do/buy/trips etc...depending on where you stay in these towns,only large established hotels accept credit cards for accom?most banks have a section for international business/transactions...so can avoid the long line ups(fridays)as a starting point i would bring into png about 300 kina each?5s/10s/20s.

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Hi, you might want to give your bank a call and let them know that you are going to use the ATM card in PNG. When we went there, one of our ATM card couldn't be used (but worked fine in Papua-Indonesia side). Luckily we had another ATM card from a different bank that we could use.

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confirm #2. the more cards you take the better. theoretically there are many ATM's, but in wewak for example I had some ATM-trouble in the morning just before I left and had to try several ATM's with several cards until it finally worked. but that happened only once.

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