Sorn Sarath / Khmer Times Share: A Wing customer using QR technology to access their financial services digitally.KT/Siv Channa
The unprecedented social and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the role of digital finance in providing relief for millions in Cambodia and around the world, supporting businesses and protecting jobs and livelihoods, according to a report by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
While the pandemic demonstrates the immediate benefits of digital finance, the disruptive potential of digitalisation in transforming finance is immense.Mobile payment technologies have transformed mobile phones into financial tools for more than a billion people.
Digital is supporting big data and artificial intelligence in advancing crypto-currencies and crypto-assets, peer-to-peer lending, crowd-funding platforms and online marketplaces.
The report said that banks have invested more than $1 trillion in developing, integrating and acquiring emerging technologies and, in 2018, financial technology (fintech) investment reached $120 billion, one third of global venture capital funding.
Say Sony, an executive vice-president of PRASAC microfinance institution, said that digital finance was already helping societies and economies as well as advancing financial inclusion in Cambodia.
“During this hard time people would like to continue doing business with contactless and safe social distancing so digital financing would help a lot.They can use mobile money, fintech services as well as online banking,” he said.
Currently PRASAC is adapting its digital platform by deploying core banking, mobile banking, internet banking and ATMs as well as joining digital financing platforms initiated by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) such as Bakong, fast services and more.
“Currently, customers can make banking transactions via PRASAC mobile and internet banking without going to a PRASAC office.Customers can also deposit their funds into their accounts via PRASAC’s cash deposit machine and they can make withdrawals via nearly 140 ATMs nationwide,” he said.
Sony said, in short, digital financial services are enabling financial institutions (FIs) to provide quick and secure financial services to “hard-to-reach” people including low-income households as well as small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
“There is huge potential for people to invest in financial education, as well as developing scalable e-commerce support for safe and sound economic growth,” he added.
However, there are some challenges because digital financing requires a big investment in technology, core banking, hardware as well as software, he said.
Limited human resource and capabilities regarding this digital finance would also be a key challenge on top of the degree of financial literacy of FI clients.
Cambodia-based fintech startup Clik in early August disbursed $3.7 million, making it Southeast Asia’s largest seeding source in mobile payments, loyalty programmes, data awareness, business intelligence and cloud data services.
A new report called “People’s Money: Harnessing Digitalisation to Finance a Sustainable Future”, by the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Finance sets out an ambitious, practical action agenda.
Centrally, it spells out how digital finance can be harnessed in ways that empower citizens as taxpayers and investors in envisaging a digital transformation on a scale that better aligns people’s money with their needs, collectively expressed by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Guterres said that digital technologies, that are revolutionising financial markets, can be a game-changer in meeting shared objectives.He said the Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals provides leadership to harness the digital revolution.Related Posts A Vietnamese security guard stands near the closed checkpoint at the Cambodia-Vietnam border in Svay Rieng province.
Photo suppled March 29, 2020.
