National Bank of Cambodia

The National Bank of Cambodia is the country's central bank, founded on December 23, 1954, soon after independence from France, and headquartered in the Daun Penh district of Phnom Penh. It manages monetary and exchange policy, regulates Cambodia's banks and other financial institutions, and controls the national currency, the riel. During Khmer Rouge rule from 1975 to 1979 the bank was deliberately destroyed as part of the regime's abolition of money, and it was rebuilt only after the Vietnamese-backed government re-established it in October 1979, with fuller reconstruction following Cambodia's 1993 transition to multiparty democracy. Dr. Chea Serey became governor in 2023, the first woman to lead the institution, presiding over a seven-member board drawn from government, the finance ministry, business, education and bank staff. In 2016 the bank launched Bakong, a blockchain based digital payment system that was one of the earliest central bank digital currency projects in Southeast Asia.