Cambodia to Launch State Owned Cryptocurrency

The “Central Bank Digital Currency“ (CBDC) issue has been in the news. It will be a matter to discuss for some time now. Everyday discussions about the implementation and the need for that are becoming more and more heated up.

Recall that, in a previous news, the level of discussions was analyzed including the pressure on governments to implement their CBDC across the world, from UK to USA. Then there are countries implementing CBDCs in just a few months, the first to announce the launch of CBDC and its implementation map was China. Since then some others followed. This made the issue more heated up in other countries especially in USA.

While China may have announced and be already on the project, they may not be the pioneer in terms of the rollout of CBDCs. Another country familiar to the crypto world has officially announced the creation of state owned CBDC which will implement Blockchain technology and will be a means of local FIAT transfer and holding, it will also carry the local FIAT value and be controlled by the central bank.

Cambodia Implements Cryptocurrency

Cambodia News Agency, the Phnom Penh Post reported that the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) has announced it will launch its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) soon in a project named Project Bakong. It will be a Blockchain based peer-to-peer payment and money transfer platform. Bakong will be tethered to the local FIAT currency and will have the same value meaning that the new system will not introduce a new currency but will be a digital version of the local FIAT.

This project is expected to rollout in a few months as made known by Chea Serey who is the Director General of the National Bank of Cambodia. She told Phnom Penh Post that the Bakong CBDC project commenced in July 2019 and will be operational within the current fiscal quarter.

She added that the CBDC will be a form of national payment gateway by bringing all players in the payment industry under the same platform which is the Bakong project and this will make it easy for users to send and receive payment across different banks and employing the automation and security of Blockchain thereby making the process swift, she added that the project will go on to include cross-border payment.

The Central Bank has announced that 11 banks are already partnering with the NBC on this project out of the total 43 commercial banks in the country and according to Chea Serey, more banks are expected to join in when the project goes live. Though the involvement of all banks is already sealed as this is an official project of the Central Bank, also the involved banks will have better services which is the Blockchain service and CBDC experience for ordinary citizens, this will naturally make all other banks join in.

According to Shin Chang Moo, the president of Phnom Penh Commercial Bank  (PPCB), citizens will be able to setup a Bakong wallet and the wallet will automatically be linked to their bank account, by that, they will be able to transfer and exchange the local FIAT into CBDC and be able to experience Blockchain transaction experience, all transaction data will also be stored and traceable on the Blockchain with NBC the only thing left to know is whether the blockchain record will be publicly available and accessible.

Phnom Penh Commercial Bank (PPCB) which is one of the 11 banks currently working on the project has already started the process of deploying the new system at its branches. This goes to show the state and level of the project, the development will soon move on to other banks involved.

Shin Chang Moo specifically praised the new system and noted that Bakong will be a cheaper and more convenient way of transferring funds unlike the existing systems. Chang Moo further explained that the Bakong project will be different from Decentralised systems like Bitcoin as this will be monitored and controlled by the State and backed by the country’s banks and financial authorities so the price will not be by speculation but by the state legal backing.

Another win

This is a huge development for cryptocurrency, more exposure keep coming in and now a close realisation of CBDC. This will increase crypto awareness and the successful implementation will spring other countries to action and make the CBDC discussions more heated. China may soon react to this by speeding up their implementation of the Digital Yuan.

With the recent developments pointing to more believe in digital currencies, there may just be more good news to come for the crypto world and we may be warming up to a mass adoption event by individuals and governments.