Thursday
February 4
2021

Fintech Points the Way to Full Financial Inclusion for Cambodians

By Husain Haider and Khmer Times

With more cellphones existing in the Kingdom than citizens and one of the youngest populations in the world, Cambodia’s mobile financial industry may be poised to bring the Kingdom’s deficit in financial inclusion to an end. This potential tipping point could mean the end to Cambodia’s status as one of the most underbanked nations in the world, according to experts.

Currently, only 17.8 percent of Cambodians over 14 years of age have a bank account, according to 2017 World Bank data.

Southeast Asia is a hotbed in e-wallets and digital payment app usage, with China’s AliPay and WeChat Pay dominating the regional digital payment landscape. The number of e-wallets in Cambodia rose by 64 percent between 2019 and 2020, amounting to more than 5 million users last year. At the forefront of that growth is Wing, which accounts for more than half of the value of the digital transactions conducted in the nation.

Source: Khmer Times (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance
Tags
digital payments, financial inclusion, fintech, mobile finance