The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), in collaboration with the global payment platform Alipay, will provide visitors to the country with the opportunity to make tourist payments in the Central Bank’s digital currency.

The Central Bank of Cambodia announced the integration of central bank digital currency (CBDC) with the trans-Asian payment system KHQR. The new Bakong CBDC solution will allow foreign tourists to make payments in the country from their electronic wallets linked to bank accounts in Cambodian government digital currency.

The KHQR payment system, launched by NBC with technological assistance from Alipay, uses a standard QR code that can be scanned by various mobile banking applications. It runs on the blockchain-based Bakong platform and supports both the Cambodian riel and the US dollar.

NBC Chairman Chea Serey noted that in the first nine months of 2023, international tourist arrivals to Cambodia almost quadrupled compared to the previous year. Against this background, the integration of state digital currency into local and global fintech applications will allow the country’s budget to receive additional revenue from tourism.

Earlier, representatives of the central banks of Singapore and Cambodia said that the popularity of cryptocurrencies among young people is pushing regulators to encourage state-owned digital currencies.