ABA Bank, the largest Cambodian commercial bank by total assets, has been the most popular digital banking platform in the country for the past few years. It recently received the “Best Bank for Digital Solutions in Cambodia 2022” award from Global Banking and Finance Review. Launched on October 2020, Bakong is a financial intermediary that links banks, micro-finances and financial institutions across Cambodia [1].
Sem Kanha, Doung Soklim’s daughter, has been using Bakong for nearly a year and seems satisfied with the service [1]. She uses the Bakong interface to transfer a portion of her monthly salary from her ABA bank account to her mother’s AMK account [1]. ABA Bank’s digital banking platform has helped it to acquire, understand and serve its customers better [2]. ABA Mobile, the bank’s flagship mobile app, had 854,000 customers as of September [2].
In 2020 alone, the app recorded more than 82 million transactions with a total volume of nearly $43 billion [2]. Nowadays, 70% of ABA Bank’s transactions are cashless and 30% are cash-based [2]. Chea Serey said Bakong also aims to provide comfort in terms of cross-border transactions to improve the lives of local people and especially migrants living or working outside Cambodia [1].
Bakong has successfully hosted 5.7 million transactions with 1.2 million cases in riels and 4.5 million in dollars [1]. In total, Bakong had approximately circulated 2.3 billion worth of US dollars (a combined transaction of 1.7 trillion riels and 1.9 billion dollars) across the interface in the previous year [1]. Channy thanked the Bakong system for contributing to the growth of financial digitalization in Cambodia, saying, “Bakong is a medium that links and registers all banks under the same umbrella, and transactions can be easier settled through the system or QR code technology” [1][2][3].
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