Bank of Cambodia: We’ll Allow More Control With Blockchain Payments

Assistant Governor at the National Bank of Cambodia Serey Chea said that blockchain payments will enable greater financial control and remittance efficiency in an interview with CNBC published on Oct. 22.

Chea said that the National Bank of Cambodia has experimented with domestic blockchain payments for retail, but the main interest is testing them for cross-border transactions. She noted that the institution has been collaborating with Malaysian bank Maybank.

It has already been recently reported that Maybank has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Bank of Cambodia on blockchain cross-border payments and remittances, though the details of the partnership were not revealed at the time. 

Lowering the fees for domestic workers abroad

She also explained that many Cambodian domestic workers reside in Malaysia and the fee imposed on the money transfers that those workers send home is usually at least 10%. The purpose of the project is to allow for much lower fees, while also enabling the remittances to be carried out in real-time.

Furthermore, she explained that the system would also allow those workers to send the money directly to Cambodian utility companies, schools and similar. The intention is to allow for greater control over money instead of having to rely on the beneficiary of the transfer to spend the money as advised.

As Cointelegraph reported in July, Philippines-based UnionBank has successfully completed a pilot of a blockchain-based cross-border remittance from the Philippines to Singapore.