Cybercriminals' use of cryptocurrencies has "damaged the reputation" of the country: Cambodia admits having delayed too long in regulating the sector

The governor of the central bank of Cambodia admitted on Friday that the authorities had delayed too long in regulating cryptocurrencies, used by cybercrime networks which have “damaged (the) reputation” of the country. “One area in which (...) we have not been sufficiently effective is that of cryptocurrencies,” declared Chea Serey during an interview in Phnom Penh, host city of the Francophonie summit on Sunday and Monday.

“Cambodia initially chose not to regulate this sector,” she added. “This allowed these malicious actors to use the cryptocurrency space to carry out numerous activities.” Cambodia has in recent years become a stronghold of the cyber scam industry, which sees billions of dollars extorted from Internet users around the world each year through fake romantic relationships or fraudulent investments in cryptocurrencies.

But under pressure from several countries, including China and the United States, the Cambodian authorities, long accused of turning a blind eye, now say they are tackling it with determination. According to the governor of the National Bank of Cambodia (BNC), a law must be adopted before the end of the year to better regulate cryptocurrencies, used by scammers to launder their assets and transfer funds from one country to another. “Better late than never” “Looking back, we always say to ourselves that we could have done this or that, but we didn’t.

And as they say, better late than never", said Chea Serey, who succeeded his father at the head of the institution in 2023. In parallel with the Francophonie summit, the BNC is organizing the "Black Swan Summit" in Phnom Penh to share its experience in the field of financial inclusion and QR code payments with African countries, and help them not to make the same mistakes. "The experiences we have gone through, in particular the problems linked to scams, have damaged our reputation,” said the manager.

“There are fewer tourists, especially those from countries in the region, coming here because of this reputation,” she stressed, affirming however that their number should soon “start to rise again”. Tourist arrivals in Cambodia - also affected by the border conflict with Thailand - fell more than 40% year-on-year in the first nine months of the year.

Machine-translated from French