Phnom Penh post:

According to the Central Bank, the new system will facilitate money transfers and payments (including across national borders) while enhancing financial inclusion in the country.

“This project aims to offer banking services to the unbanked, especially in rural areas,” NBC said in a statement.


https://www.khmertimeskh.com/626244/nbc ... yment-app/

this seems like quite a big deal
no reaction from existing or prospective payments providers?

Cambodia to Use its Blockchain Digital Wallet to Cut Cross-Border Fees
Inside Bitcoins - October 19, 2019

Regardless of how much opposition they face, the digital currency space is growing in its popularity and prominence among countries. Now, the latest of the nations to accept this revolutionary technology seems to be the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia.

According to an agreement signed by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) and the Maybank (a universal banking institution based out of Malaysia), it would seem that the government of Cambodia will now be looking to use the Bakong, a Hyperledger Iroha-powered digital wallet, to reduce the cost of making cross-border payments.

The agreement in question was signed earlier this month, and it will see both the NBC and Maybank look into how Bakong and Maybank2u (a separate digital payment platform developed and owned by Maybank) can be used to help reduce remittance fees. Cambodia and Thailand are neighbors, with only the Gulf of Thailand separating both countries. However, remittance fees between both countries, regardless of their relatively close distance, seem to be crippling.

In full: https://insidebitcoins.com/news/cambodi ... ees/240742

Cambodia Readies a Blockchain-Based Digital Currency
Paddy Baker
January 31, 2020
The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) is readying a central bank digital currency (CBDC) to be launched at some point during the current fiscal quarter.

Chea Serey, NBC’s director-general, told the Phnom Penh Post this week the central bank was developing “the national payment gateway for Cambodia” as a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer platform with its own specially designed cryptocurrency. She did not give a definite date on when the CBDC would be launched.

Known as “Project Bakong” and first trialed by NBC in July 2019, the CBDC will work on a closed system supported by its banking members, one of them, Phnom Penh Commercial Bank (PPCBank) President Shin Chang Moo, told The Post.
https://news.yahoo.com/cambodia-readies ... 24015.html

Cambodia Announces State Cryptocurrency as More Details Surface About China’s Digital Yuan
03 Feb, 2020
With China still in the lead, other countries are advancing their projects to develop payment systems around central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Cambodia, for example, has recently revealed it will mint its own coin within months. The news comes as more details about the digital Chinese yuan indicate its main purpose will be to substitute cash in a system that provides “controlled anonymity.”

Cambodia will issue the government-backed crypto to fuel what has been presented as “a blockchain-based, peer-to-peer payment and money transfer platform.” Named ‘Project Bakong,’ the system is supposed to go live in the next few months, Phnom Penh Post reported, as it already has the support of 11 banks and more are expected to join in the near future.

Chea Serey, director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), told the daily that the Bakong commenced in July, 2019. She insisted that the scheme will be operational within the current fiscal quarter. While the newspaper describes it as “a quasi-form of a central bank digital currency,” the central bank official stated that it will be the “national payment gateway for Cambodia.” Serey elaborated:

Bakong will play a central role in bringing all players in the payment space in Cambodia under the same platform, making it easy for end-users to pay each other regardless of the institutions they bank with. Eventually, we hope to allow cross border payment through the Bakong system too.

One of the private banks helping the project, Phnom Penh Commercial Bank (PPCB), has been working to deploy the new system at all of its branches. In comparison with traditional payment and money transfer options such as credit cards and mobile platforms, Bakong is cheaper and more convenient, PPCB President Shin Chang Moo noted.

Chang Moo made a clear distinction between Bakong and permissionless decentralized cryptocurrencies like bitcoin – the Cambodian digital currency project is a closed system backed by the country’s banks and financial authorities, which leaves no room for speculation. He also revealed that the Bakong wallets will be linked to bank accounts allowing users to exchange their digital coins for the nation’s fiat currency. “All the transactions will be done on a real-time basis with the records stored safely at NBC,” the banker said, adding that other central banks are likely to develop similar systems.
https://news.bitcoin.com/cambodia-annou ... ocurrency/

Cambodia eyes blockchain payment system to reduce US dollar use
9 hours ago
Steve Kaaru

Cambodia is launching a distributed ledger technology network for the country’s payment system. The new network is aimed at boosting the use of the local riel currency and cutting down the use of the U.S dollar. It will facilitate real-time payments, and the country hopes to drastically bring down the cost of payments.

While it will have many benefits for its users, the new payment’s primary goal is to reduce the use of the U.S. dollar. Serey Chea, the assistant governor of the National Bank of Cambodia said at a recent event that the U.S. dollar accounts for over 90% of the local payments. This makes Cambodia one of the most dollar-dependent economies in the world.

The DLT payment network is Cambodia’s best chance of cutting down the use of the dollar, and the central bank intends on exploiting it fully. Chea revealed that the regulator intends on launching it this year, “hopefully very soon.”

The new network will bring together the banks and e-wallets providers, allowing the users to transact among themselves. Currently, the network has 12 of the country’s banks, with Chea expressing confidence that all the financial services providers in the country will join.

The network will also extend to cross-border funds transfers with the neighboring Malaysia. Malaysia has over 30,000 Cambodians working there and every month, they send funds back home to their families. Unfortunately, the charges are exorbitant and end up taking up to 30% of the funds. The new system will cut down these charges drastically, enabling the swift movement of funds back to Cambodia.

The new system will also allow direct payments by the workers to institutions in Cambodia. They can, for instance, directly pay school fees for their children without having to send the money to their families first. This will cut down the costs even further, but more importantly, it will ensure the funds are spent on the intended purpose and not squandered by the recipients.
https://coingeek.com/cambodia-eyes-bloc ... ollar-use/

Cambodia Plots a Dollar-Free Future With Blockchain-Based Payments: White Paper
Jun 19, 2020 at 21:50 UTC

The National Bank of Cambodia revealed the technical details of its upcoming blockchain-based payments system dubbed ‘Project Bakong’ this week.

The central bank, which has been building Project Bakong since 2017, views its quasi-digital currency project as a high-tech revamp of the Khmer Riel, Cambodia’s official currency but hardly its de facto cash choice, as locals have favored the U.S. dollar for decades, according to the white paper published Thursday.

The central bank said Bakong will help challenge the dollar’s reign by inducing Cambodians to pay instead via QR codes and a mobile app, with a Hyperledger Iroha blockchain facilitating real-time fund transfers between e-wallets plugged into their bank accounts.

That permissioned blockchain will work between Bakong accounts and traditional accounts, record transactions on a distributed ledger, reach consensus via the block voting hash-based “Yet Another Consensus” algorithm, and process transactions in five seconds or less, according to the white paper.

“Transaction throughput is between 1,000 and 2,000 transactions per second,” depending on tech specs, the central bank said in the white paper. “This suggests that there is potential for this project to scale.”

The bank said its system’s peer-to-peer nature removes the inefficiencies of centralized clearing house models without costing users anything to transact.

“Since banks and individual users are now brought into one DLT platform both banks and users no longer face interconnectivity and interoperability problems,” the central bank said.

Quasi-digital currency
Cambodian officials have been hesitant to label the fiat-backed Project Bakong a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the past, instead calling it a blockchain payments system. Users must load Riel into their Bakong accounts before they can transact with others. That’s different from a natively digital CBDC.

Even so, the white paper frames Bakong against the proliferation of CBDC projects in highly-developed countries around the world. But while the paper said such nations may turn to CBDC to address their population’s falling cash use rates, in developing countries – a category in which Cambodia may remain for decades – it said that CBDC can promote financial inclusion, improve inefficient payment systems and even reduce poverty by opening access.

(Notably, the National Bank of Cambodia is one of the few central banks whose future-of-money initiative actually relies on a blockchain.)
https://www.coindesk.com/cambodia-de-do ... blockchain

Is Cambodia introducing a blockchain-based digital currency?
By Joe Devanesan | 1 July, 2020
After three years of development, the National Bank of Cambodia has revealed the technical details of its upcoming blockchain-based payments system dubbed ‘Project Bakong’ this month.

Cambodia’s central bank began developing Project Bakong since 2017, and is seen as a high-tech relaunch of the Khmer Riel, which is the kingdom of Cambodia’s official currency but is significantly lesser used by the people in favor of the US dollar, according to the recently published whitepaper.

The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has been exploring blockchain and decentralized ledger technology as safer and more resilient alternative payments systems over the last few years. Permissioned blockchains are being increasingly explored by governments as a means to introduce a central bank digital currency (CBDC) which in many ways is the opposite of the decentralized, permission-less cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that are more open systems that can lead to intense speculative value fluctuations.

In contrast, Project Bakong will be a closed system that will be backed by the nation’s banks and financial regulatory authorities. However, unlike more notable CBDCs currently being carried out by other governments such as China’s Digital Yuan project, Project Bakong is not a natively-digital currency.

Instead, users need to load Khmer Riel into their Bakong accounts, to be exchanged in transactions over the system. NBC instead hopes that Bakong will give competition to the usage of the US dollar that is so prevalent, and make the local economy less reliant on the dollar.

With the support of 11 banks already with more expected to join, the whitepaper says Project Bakong looks to allow the economy to transition to a real-time funds transfer system instead, including allowing interbank transfers. As the whitepaper states, “The implementation of Bakong would connect all financial institutions and payment service providers under a single payment platform which will allow for fund transfers to be processed on a real-time basis without the need of a centralized clearinghouse.”

In addition, Bakong will also serve as a peer-to-peer (P2P) platform including retail payments and a variety of transaction types. The system will leverage QR technology on mobile-based platforms, making it easier to access for Cambodians. The NBC claims that Bakong’s P2P nature eliminates a lot of the inefficiencies of the centralized clearinghouse models, without costing users anything to transact.

Full article: https://techwireasia.com/2020/07/is-cam ... -currency/

There have been a few articales about a soon forthcoming Cambodian CBDC (central bank digital currency). Apparently the CB has done some tests, whatever that entails, and is soon to release officially. Any news on the ground? Comments?

[Mod edit: merged with existing topic. Also, this recent news item re CBDC:
Cambodia’s Project Bakong CBDC Set for Roll Out in the Next Few Months
https://english.cambodiadaily.com/busin ... hs-167270/]