Limited use of credit card in Cambodia

Due to the stability of politics and the growth of economy, banking industry is trusted by Cambodian people. They turn from keeping their money at home to keep it at commercial bank. In addition, commercial banks also established its branches in provinces and districts in order to make people easy to use their service. In addition, the number of banking is increasing from other countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Japan and so on.

Recently, bankers reported that the number of credit card use in Cambodia is limited and most of people living in Phnom Penh and other urban centers are holding credit cards because they are the businessmen and the type of a middle class.

The absence of consumer credit histories and a centralized bureau makes the number of credit card use very low in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Education is important for increasing the number of credit card use.

The National Bank of Cambodia [NBC] released figures by showing that using credit-card loans amounted to US$6.5 million, only 0.2 percent, of the US$3.1 billion in the total loan in November 2010. What the NBC defines as loans for “personal essentials”, which include personal lending, credit cards and home mortgages, the number is 2 percent of the $297,437,750 total in lending for the month.

By the way, there are still not the essential services for a stable credit card market in Cambodia, especially creating credit history database and a centralized credit bureau for helping commercial banks to make decision to accept credit-worthy consumers.  This is good factor for commercial banks to be less likely to issue cards to their consumers who need cards if they don’t maintain a deposit of coming kind at the bank as collateral. (Posted by Khmer Clothes)