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Cambodia has no separate EMI regime; NBC licenses banks, specialized banks and PSIs under the LBFI and 2017 PSI Prakas. A new NBC Notification (14.026.1075, 6 Aug 2026) extends registration-style obligations to single-purpose e-wallet issuers outside the financial sector, requiring notification within 90 days (by 4 Nov 2026).
Outlook
Cambodia's licensing architecture appears settled rather than in flux this cycle: the core statutory basis, the non-bank licence tier and the foreign-capital-open market-access posture are all standing features rather than new developments this period. The clearest open question is statistical rather than regulatory -- resolving the discrepancy between the 51- and 59-bank counts will matter for accurately sizing the market that any prospective licensee or acquirer is entering, particularly given the continued appetite for foreign entry demonstrated by the SBI transaction.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Cambodia's non-bank payments licensing perimeter tightened on two fronts in August 2026. The National Bank of Cambodia issued Notification No. 14.026.1075 on 6 August 2026, requiring non-financial businesses that issue closed-loop electronic money, including e-wallet accounts and stored-value membership cards, to notify the central bank in writing within 90 days of the notification, by 4 November 2026, or face enforcement action under the Law on Banking and Financial Institutions. A targeted exemption exists for genuinely small, closed-loop instruments: issuers qualify where per-account balances do not exceed KHR 200,000, aggregate balances do not exceed KHR 800 million, the instrument operates on a single network, and no interest accrues. Issuers outside that exemption range must notify NBC under Articles 20(1) and 20(2) of the 2017 PSI Prakas before continuing to operate.
Separately, and on the enforcement side of the same licensing perimeter, the NBC revoked the payment service institution licence of Tian Xu International Technology Plc, trading commercially as CoolCash, on 3 August 2026. A liquidator was appointed under Article 68 of the Law on Banking and Financial Institutions. The licence had originally been granted on 27 May 2024, so the revocation came just over two years into its term. The timing is notable: it follows the UK's March 2026 decision to sanction the company over its alleged links to the Prince Group and its alleged provision of financial services to that network, placing the Cambodian licensing authority's action roughly five months behind the triggering foreign sanctions action.
Taken together, the 90-day notification deadline and the CoolCash revocation both widen the practical reach of NBC's licensing and market-access supervision over non-bank payment entities operating in Cambodia, whether through a formal notification requirement for closed-loop issuers or through direct licence-revocation enforcement against an already-authorised payment service institution.
Outlook
The 4 November 2026 notification deadline is the immediate date to track: issuers that have not filed by that date face enforcement exposure under the Law on Banking and Financial Institutions. Whether further payment institution licences face revocation on sanctions-nexus grounds, following the CoolCash precedent, is the broader market-access question for non-bank payment entrants and incumbents alike.
3 earlier distinct update(s)
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Cambodia's payments licensing perimeter has been extended this cycle by the National Bank of Cambodia's Notification 14.026.1075, dated 6 August 2026, which requires non-financial single-network e-wallet issuers to file written notification with NBC within 90 days, by 4 November 2026. This is a probable-confidence finding on a T3 source. Failure to notify exposes such issuers to enforcement action by the Law on Banking and Financial Institutions, the statute underpinning NBC's supervisory authority.
This notification requirement builds on the standing statutory basis of the 2017 Prakas on Management of Payment Service Institutions, whose Article 20(1) prohibits any entity other than a licensed bank or financial institution, or a licensed payment service institution, from issuing electronic money. This is a probable-confidence finding on the same T3 source. The distinction carried through this framework is important: bank and financial-institution issuers sit under one supervisory track, while non-bank payment institutions and e-money issuers sit under a related but distinct licensing and notification track, and the new Notification specifically closes a registration gap for a category of non-financial single-purpose issuer that had evidently sat outside the active notification net despite the underlying 2017 prohibition already covering unlicensed e-money issuance in principle.
The practical effect is a tightening of market-access conditions for any entity issuing single-network e-wallets outside the traditional bank or licensed-PSI channel: such issuers must now come forward and notify NBC or face potential enforcement exposure, even where they may have believed themselves outside the 2017 Prakas's scope by virtue of operating a closed-loop, single-network product.
Outlook
The 4 November 2026 notification deadline is the key near-term marker for this module. Compliance rates among non-financial single-purpose e-wallet issuers, and any enforcement actions NBC takes against issuers who fail to notify within the window, will indicate how effectively this registration-perimeter expansion closes the gap it was designed to address.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
The National Bank of Cambodia's Prakas B7-024-735 Prokor formally permits commercial banks and payment settlement institutions to provide crypto-asset services, but this authorisation is conditional on prior NBC approval for each institution, not a general market-access opening. Under this instrument, banks and PSPs may hold backed-cryptoasset or stablecoin exposure with NBC approval, while unbacked cryptocurrency exposure remains barred entirely for banks. This is a bank/PSP-channel model of crypto-market access: the licensing gate sits at the level of the regulated institution seeking to add crypto services to its existing licence, rather than at the level of a standalone crypto-asset service provider seeking its own dedicated authorisation.
That standalone dedicated-authorisation track does not yet exist in codified form. The NBC has flagged, but not yet published, two further implementing regulations: one covering CASP-licensing conditions and procedures specifically, and one covering bank cryptoasset-exposure limits. Until these are published, expected in 2026-Q4 per the regulatory horizon, market access for a crypto-native business seeking to operate in Cambodia without routing through an already-licensed bank or PSP remains structurally undefined. Separately, and outside the NBC's formal licensing perimeter, only two platforms, Royal Group Exchange and Cambodian Network Exchange, are reported as authorised for crypto-fiat conversion under the NBC's fintech regulatory sandbox, while offshore exchanges including Binance, Coinbase, and OKX are reported as blocked at the telecoms level by the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia; this sandbox-and-blocking picture carries lower confidence, being sourced from a single Tier-4 report, and should be read as an illustrative rather than definitive account of the informal market-access landscape operating alongside the formal bank/PSP channel.
Outlook
The publication of the NBC's CASP-licensing conditions and bank cryptoasset-exposure implementing regulations, expected in 2026-Q4, is the single most consequential near-term market-access development to watch. Their arrival would clarify whether Cambodia intends to open a standalone licensing track for crypto-native businesses or continue channelling all crypto-asset market access through already-licensed banks and payment settlement institutions.
Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access
Cambodia's approach to licensing and market access for non-bank and digital-asset payment activity shifted materially this cycle. A prime-ministerial-level decision in August 2026 established an Inter-Ministerial Working Group with a mandate to draft a comprehensive Law on the Management of Virtual Assets/Digital Assets, assessed at moderate confidence and sourced to regional reporting. This is Cambodia's first documented move toward a dedicated statutory framework for virtual and digital assets, as distinct from the sandbox-based and Prakas-level instruments that have governed the space to date; no draft legislative text or implementation timeline has been confirmed, and the interpreter data classifies the expected impact date only at multi-year uncertainty.
In parallel, and likely as an interim measure pending the broader statute, Cambodia introduced a notification requirement for non-bank e-wallet issuers. Companies that are not registered as banking or financial institutions, nor as payment service providers, but that issue e-wallets in connection with their own products, must now notify the National Bank of Cambodia before conducting transactions. This is structured explicitly as a notification-only obligation rather than a licence category, positioning it as a lighter-touch market-access control than the licensing regime that applies to banks and PSPs.
The bank-versus-non-bank distinction is the analytical spine of this module's findings this cycle. Licensed banks and payment service providers continue to operate under Cambodia's existing prudential and payments-licensing framework, which this cycle's material does not indicate has changed. The new notification requirement instead targets a specific gap: non-bank entities issuing e-wallets for their own commercial products, a category that had previously operated with less formal regulatory visibility. This is a market-access control calibrated to bring a specific class of non-bank issuer within the National Bank of Cambodia's monitoring perimeter without imposing the full licensing burden that applies to banks and PSPs, a graduated approach consistent with regulatory practice elsewhere in the region for similar non-bank payment innovation.
The forthcoming virtual-asset law is the more consequential development for market access over the medium term. An Inter-Ministerial Working Group structure, rather than a single ministry or the National Bank of Cambodia acting alone, suggests the eventual statute will need to reconcile digital-asset policy across multiple government functions, which is consistent with the cross-cutting nature of virtual-asset regulation but also introduces coordination risk that could extend the drafting timeline. Market entrants and existing non-bank payment providers assessing Cambodia should treat the current notification-only regime as transitional rather than as a settled long-term licensing framework, and should expect the eventual virtual-asset statute to reshape the market-access landscape for digital-asset-adjacent payment activity materially once enacted.
Instrument-wise, this cycle's findings sit within the prepaid/e-money and general non-bank licensing space rather than touching card schemes, account-to-account rails, or CBDC infrastructure directly, even though Cambodia's broader payments landscape includes an active CBDC-adjacent settlement rail. The notification requirement's narrow targeting of e-wallet issuers for own-product use, rather than all non-bank payment activity generally, suggests Cambodian authorities are proceeding incrementally rather than through a single comprehensive non-bank payments law.
Outlook
The Inter-Ministerial Working Group's drafting mandate is the central item to track for market access over the coming cycles; expect the first concrete milestone to be either a public consultation process or a first draft text, neither of which has yet been confirmed. The interim notification regime for non-bank e-wallet issuers should be watched for whether it evolves into a fuller licensing category once the virtual-asset law is drafted, or remains a standalone lighter-touch instrument. Given the multi-year uncertainty band assessed for the broader statute, market-access clarity for non-bank and digital-asset payment providers in Cambodia is unlikely to firm up in the immediate near term.
Sources and findings (6)
- T2https://cambodiacounsel.com/banking/retrieved
- T2https://www.srlaw.asia/index.php/en/component/k2/item/214-prakas-on-management-of-payment-transactions-services-institutionretrieved
- T3https://conventuslaw.com/report/cambodia-the-national-bank-of-cambodia-introduces/retrieved
- T3https://www.vdb-loi.com/kh_publications/how-to-get-a-bank-license-in-cambodia/retrieved
- T3https://www.fintechobserver.com/japans-sbi-holdings-completes-acquisition-of-cambodia-unit-in-100m-expansion-push/retrieved
- T3https://www.khmertimeskh.com/14249/nbc-order-to-protect-online-payments/retrieved