Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam Nguyen Thi Hong and Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia Chea Serey at the launching ceremony of the Vietnam-Cambodia cross-border QR payment link (Source: NBC)

Phnom Penh - Vietnam and Cambodia have officially launched a bilateral cross-border QR payment link, allowing their peoples to scan QR codes to make payments in each other’s country using their local currency.

Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) Nguyen Thi Hong and Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) Chea Serey chaired the launching ceremony in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province on December 3.

A press release from the NBC said that the new payment system aims to facilitate safe, convenient, secure, and affordable cross-border payments, promoting the use of local currencies.

It is expected to particularly benefit Cambodian and Vietnamese citizens, especially tourists and merchants, stated the press release.

It said that the effort follows a memorandum of understanding inked by the two central banks on November 8, 2022. After the signing, technical working groups from both sides met to discuss the modality of the linkage, agreeing to utilise a sponsorship model for the project.

The cross-border QR payment system enables customers and the public to purchase goods and make payments in Khmer riel (KHR) in Vietnam, while allowing Vietnamese to use Vietnamese dong in Cambodia by scanning KHQR codes provided by approximately 1.8 million Cambodian merchants.

KHQR is a popular quick response (QR) code system created for retail payments in Cambodia. In 2022, the NBC launched the KHQR code payment service, aimed at promoting retail payments using mobile phones in Cambodia.

Along with Vietnam, Cambodia has also set up bilateral cross-border QR payment links with Thailand and Laos.