Fintech potential still untapped
Digital financial services have the potential to significantly expand economic activity in Cambodia by bridging the gap between existing financial products and growing credit needs, according to a new study. Adopting digital financial services, or fintech, could increase the Kingdom’s GDP by about 6 percent, the authors of Accelerating Financial Inclusion in Southeast Asia with Digital Finance, a report commissioned by the Asian Development Bank, concluded. Fintech has the potential to generate more than $1.7 billion in additional electronic payment flows, fuel more than $2.5 billion in additional credit uptake and mobilise more than $500 million in savings, they said. According to the report, which surveyed digital finance potential in the four ASEAN countries – Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines – the Kingdom’s formal financial institutions only met 16 percent of the population’s needs for savings activities, the lowest of the countries ranked. At the same time, it scored the highest in terms of having the most-developed network of microfinance institutions.
