The National Bank of Cambodia has already achieved enormous success with its Bakong digital payment app that uses DLT. There are more than ten million wallets out of a population of 17 million. Now it has soft-launched an app for Cambodian tourists.
Beyond the Bakong tourist app, a key goal of Bakong is to encourage greater usage of the local riel currency. Around 80% of all local transactions are in U.S. dollars versus less than 60% via Bakong. The Bakong tourist app only supports QR code payments in riel.
Today most tourists use a mix of cards and cash, often locally available U.S. dollar notes, which are rather damaged. Credit cards are accepted at 55,000 outlets compared to 3.3 million locations that support the KHQR codes used in Bakong, including small stalls.
Tourists can download the app and register via email. Currently they have to top up at banks and hotels, with the ability to enter card details via the app coming soon. With this level of identity verification, tourists can spend the equivalent of up to $1,000 a day, with a $3,000 limit after verifying their identity in person. The Post implied that hotels and travel agents can perform the verification with a passport ID check.
On departure, the remaining balance can be converted at a bank, given to a local charity, or used at other tourist destinations in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and other jurisdictions. We’d observe that using Bakong overseas will be subject to a foreign exchange spread at the very least. However, these countries also top the list for foreign arrivals into Cambodia.
Additional integrations with Malaysia and South Korea are meant to go live in the next couple of months. The central bank has also inked collaborations with China, India, Singapore and Japan for cross border payments. Japan’s Soramitsu is the technology provider for Bakong.
While many treat Bakong as a CBDC, it’s not. In fact, it’s a tokenized deposit solution designed by the central bank.
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Bakong tourist app benefits
There are several benefits of the Bakong tourist app. The stated goal of local currency usage means the banks and central bank effectively get foreign currency, while traders get more local currency. Other than that, the central bank mentioned the convenience for tourists and the avoidance of tatty dollar notes.
We see a few additional benefits. For the 55,000 outlets that support cards, it can save them expensive merchant fees charged by Western credit cards. For the central bank, it helps to provide greater visibility into economic activity with tourism making up more than 18% of GDP in 2019. A simple survey at airport departures can help it get a sense of the ratio of tourists that use the app. Otherwise, with a large proportion of cash transactions, it’s hard to see what’s really happening in the economy.
The data could potentially be used for tax purposes, but as soon as that happens, Bakong usage could decline. Getting a picture of economic activity is a big win on its own.
