Status
LIVE
Cambodia
Cambodia Bakong (Digital Payment System)
According to National Bank of Cambodia disclosures and linked sources, this profile records status, architecture, and capability fields for Cambodia Bakong (Digital Payment System).
Program Snapshot
Current status fields and timeline data from the profile record.
Type
RETAIL
Program classification
Wallets
10,000,000
As of 2025-12-31
Annual Volume
$152.8B
high confidence
Status and Timeline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Announced | 2019-01-01 |
| Pilot start | Not listed |
| Launch | 2020-10-01 |
| Last verified | 2026-04-22 |
Availability
- Retail
- live
- Wholesale
- none
Central Bank
National Bank of Cambodia
Technical Profile
| Attribute | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Retail |
| Architecture | two-tier |
| Access model | account based |
| Technology base | dlt |
| Legal tender | full |
Capabilities
offline payments: No
programmability: No
cross border: Yes
interest bearing: No
transaction limits: Yes
Cross-Border Projects
No cross-border project entries are listed for this profile.
Recent Updates
According to the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), Bakong is a retail payment system launched in October 2020 that functions as a CBDC-like platform for peer-to-peer fund transfers. The system recorded 1.325 billion transactions in 2025, a 1.2-fold increase from 2024, with 771.2 million transactions in Khmer riel (up 1.6x) and 554.5 million in US dollars. Transaction value reached 285.9 trillion riel (~$70 billion) and $152.8 billion USD respectively. Bakong has 10 million active wallets and 63 official member institutions. A primary objective is reducing dollarization in Cambodia's economy by promoting riel usage - riel payments via Bakong have increased over 50% since launch. The system facilitates real-time transactions for businesses and consumers, including government payment processes such as tax collection and public services. Bakong enables cross-border payments with Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam through bilateral arrangements.
Updated: Apr 22, 2026
Reference Answers
Is Bakong already live, or is it still a pilot?
high confidenceAs of 2026-04-21Bakong is already live in public use. Official materials describe an operating payment system and active cross-border launches, which is why the registry keeps the Cambodia page in live status rather than pilot.
The official Bakong site is not written like a future roadmap page. It presents Bakong as an operating mobile-payments and transfer network with participating institutions, public-user functionality, and merchant/payment use cases. NBC's March 2025 cross-border launch notice reinforces that this is an operating system being expanded, not a programme still waiting for first deployment.
- The Bakong site describes active consumer and merchant payment functionality.
- NBC announced a Phase 2 cross-border payment launch with UnionPay in March 2025.
- The registry therefore treats Bakong as live even though official terminology often emphasizes payment-system language.
Citations
- Bakong – The Next-Generation Mobile Paymentscentral bank · T1
Caveats
- Official Cambodian materials often describe Bakong as a payment system rather than using uniform CBDC terminology.
Related CBDCs
Sources
Sources
Last verified: 2026-04-22
National Bank of Cambodia
central bank
Bakong Transactions Reach 1.3 Billion in 2025
news
Cambodia's central bank uses CBDC to stifle dollarization of local economy
news