The Securities and Exchange Commission of Cambodia (SECC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Hong Kong-based risk management company CamNext Global yesterday, entering into a study that is expected to reveal the best means of stabilising the Kingdom’s infrastructure to support financial technology solutions and the use of cryptocurrencies.

Rogers Chan, co-founder of CamNext, explained that fintech has the potential to give Cambodia a competitive edge, especially with regard to digital strategic investment and crossborder trade finance development, but added that a lack of infrastructure was holding the Kingdom back. In particular, he highlighted the importance of regulating cryptocurrency exchange.

“By signing the MoU today, we shall work to create a licensing requirement for a regulated crypto-assets exchange,” he said. “With proper, systematic regulations in place in Cambodia, we can alleviate many of the security issues and scalability problems that global public investors are currently facing in the unregulated cryptocurrency markets.”

Sou Sucheat, general director of the SECC, said that the study was being conducted because uses of fintech were likely to carry risks as well as benefits, and that Cambodia needed to be aware of all possible negative effects.

“Fintech could bring several benefits, including ease of trade and hastened development,” he said. “I do not dare say how these tools will work, though, because we need to study them in order to find out exactly what they entail, and there are definitely risks we need to be aware of.”