Bakong moved $224 billion through Cambodia's financial system in 2025, more than four times the country's annual GDP of roughly $49.8 billion (IMF, 2025 nominal GDP estimate; transaction figures from National Bank of Cambodia data, reported by Kiripost and Cambodianess, January 2026). That is not a typo and not double-counted trade figures. It is the National Bank of Cambodia's own interbank settlement system, and it now touches more money in a year than the entire Cambodian economy produces.
For a business selling anything online to a Cambodian customer, that number is not abstract. It means the customer standing at checkout almost certainly expects to scan a code, not type a card number or wait for a bank transfer to clear. This guide explains what Bakong actually is, how big it has grown, what "the Bakong app" does and does not mean, and what a Cambodia-facing website needs to actually accept it.
What Is Bakong, and Why Does Every Cambodian Business Hear the Name?
Bakong is the National Bank of Cambodia's real-time interbank payment system, built to let any bank, microfinance institution or e-wallet in the country settle transfers with any other one instantly, without each pair of institutions building its own connection. The National Bank launched it in October 2020 after selecting the Japanese fintech firm Soramitsu in 2017 to build it on Hyperledger Iroha, a blockchain ledger Soramitsu originally developed and still maintains (Hyperledger Foundation case study, 2020). It is widely credited as the first blockchain-based retail payment system launched directly by a central bank.
Bakong itself is infrastructure, not a single app a customer opens. KHQR, the interoperable QR code standard, is what most Cambodians and most businesses actually interact with: one QR code that any Bakong-connected bank app can scan, regardless of which bank issued it. The National Bank of Cambodia officially rolled out KHQR in July 2022 (fintechcambodia.net, 2026), on top of a Bakong system that had already been running for almost two years. That distinction, system versus code standard, is the one most articles about Bakong skip, and it matters the moment a business tries to figure out what to actually build.
How Much Money Actually Moves Through Bakong?
Bakong processed 608 million transactions worth roughly $148.9 billion in 2024, equal to about 330% of Cambodia's GDP that year (National Bank of Cambodia data, reported by Ledger Insights, March 2025). By 2025 that had grown to 1.325 billion transactions worth $224 billion, an increase of about 50% in value and more than double in transaction count in a single year (National Bank of Cambodia figures, reported by Kiripost and Cambodianess, January 2026).
The currency mix has shifted just as fast. The riel-denominated share of Bakong transactions climbed from 16.7% in 2020 to 58.2% in 2025 (National Bank of Cambodia data, reported by Khmer Times, 2026), a direct result of the central bank pushing Bakong as a de-dollarization tool as much as a payments one.
| Metric | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Transactions | 608 million | 1.325 billion |
| Transaction value | ~$148.9 billion | $224 billion |
| Value as % of GDP | ~330% (2024 GDP) | ~450% (2025 GDP) |
| Riel-denominated share | lower | 58.2% |
More than 60 banks, microfinance institutions and e-wallets are connected to Bakong, feeding roughly 30 million registered Bakong wallets, about 1.69 times Cambodia's population of 17.3 million, since one person routinely holds linked wallets across more than one bank (Ledger Insights, March 2025). More than 4.5 million merchants accept KHQR payments nationwide (fintechcambodia.net and Ledger Insights, 2025), from supermarkets down to a single noodle stall.
Bakong, KHQR and the Bakong Tourists App Are Three Different Things
Most coverage of Bakong uses the three names interchangeably, and that is the single most common source of confusion for a business trying to work out what to build. They are not the same thing.
Bakong is the settlement layer the National Bank of Cambodia and its 60-plus connected institutions run behind the scenes. A business never talks to Bakong directly. KHQR is the QR code standard that sits on top of it: the thing printed on a merchant's counter sticker or generated by a checkout page, readable by any participating bank's own app. The Bakong Tourists app is one specific consumer-facing app, published by the National Bank of Cambodia, aimed at foreign visitors who do not hold a Cambodian bank account.
| Layer | What it is | Who touches it directly |
|---|---|---|
| Bakong | Interbank settlement system (NBC + 60+ institutions) | Banks and licensed payment providers |
| KHQR | The QR code standard for payments | Merchants, shoppers, websites |
| Bakong Tourists app | A specific consumer app for foreign visitors | International tourists without a Cambodian bank account |
A business building or updating a website does not integrate "with Bakong." It integrates with a payment gateway, most often a bank's API such as ABA PayWay, or a Bakong-certified aggregator, that generates and verifies KHQR codes and settles the funds through Bakong underneath. That is the practical takeaway this article exists to make clear, because none of the guides, app store listings or news pieces currently ranking for this topic draw that line for a business audience.
Can Tourists and Foreign Visitors Pay With Bakong?
Yes, through the Bakong Tourists app, which lets a foreign visitor link a Visa or Mastercard and scan any KHQR code in the country without opening a Cambodian bank account. The National Bank of Cambodia held a launch event for the app in Siem Reap on August 19, 2024 (hh bank Cambodia PLC, August 2024), before the international rollout continued through the rest of that year.
Cross-border KHQR links go further than the tourist app alone. The National Bank of Cambodia has live bilateral QR links with six markets, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and China, each tied to a home-market scheme such as PromptPay or Alipay+ (fintechcambodia.net, 2026). A visitor from any of those six can, in principle, scan a Cambodian merchant's KHQR code straight from their home banking app, no currency exchange counter involved.
Take a Siem Reap tour operator taking a $45 booking deposit from a walk-in visitor. A KHQR sticker at the desk covers a Cambodian customer, a visitor with the Tourists app installed, or one from a linked market paying through their own bank app. Cash-only or card-terminal-only checkout misses all three.
What Does Bakong's Scale Actually Mean for an Online Business?
We would tell any Cambodia-facing business the same thing: a checkout that does not support KHQR is not neutral, it is actively losing customers who never say why they left. With 4.5 million merchants and 30 million wallets already moving $224 billion a year through this rail, a shopper who reaches a checkout offering only a bank transfer form or a WhatsApp number to "confirm payment" has hit a worse experience than the one they get at the noodle stall down the street.
Run the numbers on a small Cambodian service business, a Phnom Penh English-language tutoring center charging a $60 monthly deposit online. At even a conservative 15% cart abandonment attributable to payment friction, a business processing 40 deposits a month is losing roughly 6 bookings, $360 a month, to a checkout page that makes the customer do more work than scanning a code. That gap closes with a KHQR option that takes a competent development team a matter of days to wire in, not months.
Our second opinion follows directly from the first: a merchant's static KHQR sticker, photographed and pasted as an image into a website, is not a Bakong integration. It looks like one to a visitor, but it cannot confirm payment automatically, cannot reconcile against an order in the backend, and turns every sale into a manual check of a bank statement. That gap is exactly why order confirmations get delayed and refunds get messy on sites that took the sticker shortcut.
Bakong Payments on a Cambodian Website Are a Gateway Integration, Not a Screenshot
You add Bakong-backed payments to a Cambodian website through a payment gateway, not through Bakong directly. In practice that means integrating a bank's API, most commonly ABA Bank's PayWay among the builds we track, or a licensed KHQR aggregator, so the site can generate a dynamic per-order QR code, receive a webhook the moment the customer pays, and update the order automatically instead of waiting on a screenshot.
That is a different project from a marketplace listing or a Facebook page taking screenshots of transfers, and it is the same kind of work behind any custom ecommerce build we ship out of Phnom Penh: a checkout that matches how Cambodian and visiting customers already expect to pay, KHQR included, tied into order and delivery logic rather than bolted on as an image. Our guide to ecommerce in Cambodia covers the wider payment and logistics picture beyond Bakong alone.
If you are scoping a site that needs to accept KHQR properly, whether that is a first build or a checkout retrofit, get in touch with our checkout team about KHQR, look at recent project work, or start with our guide to picking a digital agency in Phnom Penh.
Prefer to chat? Message our founder directly on Telegram (@maxgrolier), or book a call with the team.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bakong the same as KHQR?
No. Bakong is the National Bank of Cambodia's interbank settlement system that banks and payment providers connect to behind the scenes, while KHQR is the QR code standard built on top of it that shoppers and websites actually see and scan. A business integrates with a payment gateway that uses KHQR, not with Bakong directly.
What is the Bakong Tourists app?
The Bakong Tourists app is a National Bank of Cambodia app for foreign visitors who do not hold a Cambodian bank account. It lets a tourist link a Visa or Mastercard and scan KHQR codes at merchants across the country, after the National Bank held its launch event in Siem Reap in August 2024.
Can a foreign card holder pay a Cambodian KHQR code without the Bakong Tourists app?
Sometimes, depending on where the card or account is from. The National Bank of Cambodia has live cross-border QR links with Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan and China, letting a visitor from one of those six markets pay Cambodian merchants directly from their own banking app in some cases, in addition to the general option of using the Bakong Tourists app.
How does a website actually accept Bakong or KHQR payments?
A website accepts Bakong-backed payments by integrating a payment gateway, most commonly a bank's API such as ABA PayWay or a licensed KHQR aggregator, so the site can generate a dynamic QR code per order and receive automatic confirmation. Pasting an image of a static merchant KHQR sticker is not the same thing and does not confirm payment automatically.
Is Bakong only for large businesses?
No. More than 4.5 million merchants in Cambodia already accept KHQR, from major retailers down to single-stall vendors, because the standard is built to work the same way regardless of business size. The main decision for a growing online business is whether checkout accepts it automatically through a gateway or relies on manual screenshot confirmation.
How big is Bakong compared to the rest of Cambodia's payment options?
Bakong moved $224 billion in transactions in 2025, more than four times Cambodia's GDP, and connects over 60 banks, microfinance institutions and e-wallets. Card networks and cash still exist, but at this scale KHQR is the default a Cambodian shopper reaches for first at most checkouts.
