Cambodia’s financial system has evolved rapidly over the past two decades, thanks to impressive average economic growth of more than 7% between 1993 and 2016. The banks, some of them foreign owned, have played an important role in attracting foreign investment to the post-conflict country and helped Cambodia join the global economy.
Uniquely, Cambodia’s microfinance institutions, many of them rooted in donor-funded development projects in the war-ravaged countryside, have done an impressive job of dramatically improving financial inclusion, from an estimated 5% to 7% of the adult population in 2003 to about 55% now, according to the National Bank of Cambodia, the country’s central bank. “It was mostly contributed by microfinance,” says Chea Serey, director-general of the central bank.
