Cambodia: NBC’s Bakong Wins Nikkei Award for Financial Inclusion

Source: Khmer Times

The National Bank of Cambodia’s (NBC) Bakong digital payment system has won one of the Awards for Excellence in the Nikkei Superior Products and Services Awards. The world’s biggest financial newspaper selected Bakong “for its innovative technology and impact on the country’s economic and social development,” it said yesterday. The Japanese news organization only selects 16 products for the annual awards.

Cambodia’s central bank officially launched Bakong in October 2020 and there were 270,000 users as of November, according to the NBC. Bakong’s app allows people to make payments in shops and send and receive money by scanning a QR code, entering a phone number or picking a name from their contact list. It can also be used to make overseas remittances from Malaysia, following an agreement with the country’s biggest lender Maybank in August last year.