AKP Phnom Penh, January 27, 2021 --

Senior official of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) reaffirmed the Cambodia’s commitment on improvement and monitoring on payment system for the national economic development.

Addressing at the official launching ceremony of Retail Pay held here on Jan. 26, H.E. Ms. Neav Chanthana, Deputy Governor of the NBC said, payment system has played an important role in supporting and promoting the economic development by providing efficient and safe financial infrastructure to facilitate the fund transfer and payment for commercial activities.

Meanwhile, she added, payment system is also an effective instrument used to accelerate financial inclusion by leveraging newly innovative Fintech to expand the provision of affordable electronic payment services to the rural population where bank branch is not available.

“Most importantly, while Cambodia and the world have been impacted by the outbreak of the Covid-19 and the preventive measures such as quarantine, social distancing and so on are exercised, payment system has largely contributed to increasing electronic means of payment and lowering the use of cash which could be the source of spreading virus,” she underlined.

According to H.E. Ms. Neav Chanthana, the NBC as an authority has put tremendous effort to develop, regulate and oversee payment system in order to promote safety, efficiency, competition, customer protection and innovation in payment space.

“So far, the NBC already developed and officially launched various systems such as National Clearing System in 2012, Fast Payment System in 2016, and Bakong System in October 2020”, she said.

In the meantime, the NBC is also planning to launch the Cambodian Shared Switch in the near future while real time gross settlement system is still under the development to facilitate and reduce risks for large value payment in response to the gradual development of financial market, she pointed out.

Putting payment system infrastructures in place will significantly promote the interoperability among banking and financial institutions which will contribute to enhancing efficiency and accessibility to payment services at large. In addition, adopting appropriate regulatory and supervisory framework is also an important factor in encouraging banking and financial institutions to introduce new innovative payment services and instruments such as internet banking, mobile banking, payment card (debit card and credit card), ATM and POS, QR Code payment in line with the rapidly evolving Fintech development.

NBC Deputy Governor H.E. Ms. Neav Chanthana (3rd R) and South Korean Ambassador H.E. Park Heung-kyeong (3rd L) at the official launching ceremony of Retail Pay in Phnom Penh on Jan. 26. (Photo: KOICA)

By Heng Panha