Fintech & payments regulation in Cambodia (2026)

The Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC) issued Prakas 093, establishing full licensing rules for digital asset service providers with minimum capital of KHR 40 billion (~USD 10 million); only firms that have graduated from the regulatory sandbox may apply, and digital assets are classified as financial instruments. This reversed the near-blanket 2018 prohibition and created Cambodia's first formal legal pathway for crypto businesses.

Bank Negara Malaysia and NBC activated the second, reciprocal phase of the KHQR–DuitNow linkage, enabling Malaysians to scan Cambodian merchant QR codes at 4.5 million KHQR touchpoints using local mobile-banking apps. The corridor now operates fully in both directions, marking the deepest bilateral retail-payment integration Cambodia has achieved.

The National Bank of Cambodia issued binding rules for banks and payment service providers handling cryptoasset transactions, introducing a two-tier classification (Group 1: qualifying stablecoins and tokenised securities; Group 2: higher-risk crypto assets). This is the NBC's first Prakas formally governing cryptoasset activities for its supervised institutions, complementing the SERC's parallel securities-side rules.

Following a February 2024 PM-level MOU between NBC and Bank Negara Malaysia, Phase 1 went live: Cambodian users could scan DuitNow QR codes at over 2 million Malaysian merchants via the Bakong or Maybank M2U KH app, paying in Khmer Riel. This was Cambodia's first activated bilateral QR payment corridor outside ASEAN pilot programmes.

Bank Negara Malaysia and the NBC established real-time KHQR-DuitNow interoperability, letting Cambodian app users (including Bakong) scan Malaysian QR codes and vice versa. The linkage is part of ASEAN Regional Payment Connectivity and followed Cambodia's earlier live connections with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

The NBC and UnionPay International activated KHQR acceptance for international UnionPay app users visiting Cambodia, opening the Bakong-anchored payment network to Chinese-market travellers and expanding inbound digital payment corridors ahead of peak tourism season.

Deputy Prime Minister Aun Pornmoniroth launched Cambodia's five-year national fintech strategy, comprising 52 measures across four pillars: policy enablers, digital enablers, enabling technologies, and fintech innovation. The policy enshrines financial inclusion, financial stability, and open innovation as co-equal objectives and serves as the master blueprint for all subsequent NBC and FSA rule-making.

The Non-Banking Financial Services Authority created a formal sandbox allowing non-bank fintech firms to test novel products under relaxed regulatory requirements with real customers, for a capped testing period. The Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC) issued a companion securities-sector sandbox guideline on 7 August 2023.

The Non-Banking Financial Services Authority issued Prakas No. 037, creating a formal sandbox regime for fintech firms in securities, insurance and pensions. Sandbox completion was later made a mandatory prerequisite for obtaining the SERC's digital asset business licence under Prakas 093, making this a critical gatekeeping step in the crypto-licensing pipeline.

The Digital Economy and Business Committee, chaired by the Minister of Economy and Finance, published the five-year national fintech strategy comprising 52 measures across policy enablers, digital enablers and innovation promotion, targeting financial inclusion, payment-system deepening and ecosystem development. It set the overarching policy architecture for all subsequent sandbox and licensing regulations.

NBC introduced KHQR, an EMVCo-compliant interoperable QR standard allowing consumers to pay any participating bank or PSP through a single merchant QR code, replacing Cambodia's fragmented per-institution QR ecosystem. KHQR subsequently became the technical backbone for all of Cambodia's bilateral cross-border QR linkages.

The NBC launched Bakong, a Hyperledger Iroha-based retail payment platform co-developed with SORAMITSU, enabling instant riel and USD transfers across participating banks and e-wallets via a single app. One of the world's earliest state-backed DLT retail payment rails, Bakong became Cambodia's central interoperability infrastructure and a key de-dollarisation tool, growing to over 8 million users and USD 15 billion in annual transactions by 2024.

NBC commenced a live pilot of its blockchain-based national payment system with a limited cohort of partner banks, stress-testing real-time interbank settlement in both KHR and USD; the pilot also served Cambodia's de-dollarisation policy goals by incentivising riel-denominated digital transactions. Growth during the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated adoption and informed the full 2020 launch.

The National Bank of Cambodia, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia and the General-Commissariat of National Police declared that buying, selling, trading or settling cryptocurrencies without a licence is illegal and punishable under applicable law. The statement, which built on an earlier December 2017 NBC circular barring financial institutions from servicing crypto traders, stood as the de-facto prohibition regime until the 2024-2025 licensing Prakas reversed course.

The NBC's landmark Prakas made operating a payment-transaction-account service a licensed activity for the first time, requiring all non-bank payment operators to obtain NBC approval and meet capital and operational requirements. It remains the foundational licensing instrument for Cambodia's entire modern digital-payment sector.

The NBC issued its first regulation explicitly authorising third-party processors to act on behalf of banks in money remittance, clearing and settlement, subject to prior NBC approval. This was Cambodia's earliest formal acknowledgement of non-bank payment intermediaries and established the conceptual forerunner to the later PSP licensing regime.

Cambodia's first dedicated payment-systems statute defined negotiable instruments, authorised electronic payment orders, and granted NBC explicit statutory authority to regulate and oversee the national payment infrastructure. It is the foundational legislation upon which all subsequent NBC payment Prakas are anchored.

Parliament enacted Cambodia's first dedicated payment-systems statute, establishing a legal framework for electronic payments, clearing and settlement and empowering the NBC to regulate payment systems. The law complemented the 1999 banking law and created the statutory basis for all subsequent NBC payment Prakas.

Cambodia's parliament enacted the foundational banking law (NS/RKM/1199/13), granting the NBC authority to licence and supervise all banks and financial institutions and to regulate payment methods in national and foreign currency via Prakas. All subsequent digital-payment and fintech licensing authority, including PSP, e-money and digital-asset regimes, traces its legal basis to this law.