Cambodia Investment Review
Cambodia’s Bakong payment system processed approximately 1.326 billion transactions in 2025, up 118.7% from the previous year, highlighting the growing scale of the country’s digital payment infrastructure as technology partner SORAMITSU marks a decade of the blockchain project underpinning the platform.
Total transaction value reached KHR 899.1 trillion, equivalent to approximately 4.5 times Cambodia’s gross domestic product, according to the National Bank of Cambodia’s Financial Stability Review 2025, cited in SORAMITSU’s anniversary announcement.
Riel-denominated payments accounted for 58.2% of transactions by number, placing Cambodia’s national currency at the centre of much of the system’s payment activity.
The figures underscore Bakong’s role in connecting Cambodia’s financial institutions and supporting domestic and cross-border payments. They also make Cambodia a prominent example of the practical deployment of Hyperledger Iroha, the open-source blockchain technology that entered the Hyperledger Project’s incubation programme on October 13, 2016.
Bakong Anchors Cambodia’s Digital Payment Expansion
Co-developed by the National Bank of Cambodia and Japan-origin financial technology company SORAMITSU, Bakong officially launched on October 28, 2020.
The system connects participating financial institutions and supports payments in both Cambodian riel and US dollars, providing shared infrastructure for transactions across the country’s banking and payment networks.
The central bank’s review also records QR-payment connectivity arrangements with eight regional economies and four international payment service providers, reflecting the widening international reach of Cambodia’s payment infrastructure.
For businesses, that connectivity is relevant to the acceptance of digital payments from customers using different financial providers and, where cross-border arrangements are available, overseas payment services.
SORAMITSU presented Bakong as a defining achievement in Iroha’s development, demonstrating how open-source technology can operate at national scale under central-bank leadership.
Cambodia Experience Informs Regional Projects
SORAMITSU said its experience in Cambodia has informed subsequent work with central banks across Asia and the Pacific.
In Laos, the company and the Bank of the Lao PDR began a proof of concept for DLak, or Digital Lao Kip, in 2023, following a feasibility study initiated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency.
In the Solomon Islands, the Bokolo Cash proof of concept, announced in 2023, explored domestic payments, interbank transactions and simulated cross-border transfers.
SORAMITSU also worked with the Bank of Papua New Guinea and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on a Digital Kina proof of concept, whose completion was marked in January 2025.
These projects provide environments for evaluating digital currency systems before institutions decide whether to pursue broader deployment.
The company’s work has also extended into securities and savings products. It joined an Asian Development Bank initiative to develop a prototype for cross-border securities settlement and introduced Palau Invest, an Iroha 2-based digital savings bond prototype, in 2024.
Next Phase Targets Connections Between Financial Systems
SORAMITSU is now developing Hyperledger Iroha 3 and SORA Nexus, with the aim of connecting payments, digital assets and institutional systems while allowing participating organisations to retain control over their policies and private data.
The proposed architecture uses separate institutional “data spaces” through which banks, central banks and other organisations can manage access, applications and transaction rules.
Potential applications include coordinating both sides of a currency exchange or linking the delivery of a security with its payment. Work on compatibility with financial messaging standards, including ISO 20022, is intended to support integration with existing infrastructure.
Development and validation are continuing. The announcement did not set out a timetable for deploying the new architecture in Cambodia or upgrading Bakong to Iroha 3.
Dr Makoto Takemiya, SORAMITSU’s Co-Founder and Group CEO, identified the partnership with the National Bank of Cambodia as a key achievement of Iroha’s first decade and said the company’s next ambition is to make financial systems easier to connect across economies.
Sandra Ro, CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council, also recognised the milestone and the contributions of the Iroha developer community.
For Cambodia, Bakong’s transaction figures provide the clearest measure of the technology’s existing reach, while SORAMITSU’s next phase points toward greater connectivity between independently governed financial systems.
