While shopping for a brand-new television, 27-year-old Loek Bunhai recently bought a Sony flat-screen at the Sunsimexco retail outlet on Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard for $345. But with a monthly salary of $300 from his job as a microfinance officer in Phnom Penh, Mr. Bunhai was ...

The Kingdom’s first life insurance company, Cambodian Life, launched yesterday, courting a market almost entirely unfamiliar with the service. Industry insiders said demand for the products would need time to grow. The establishment of Cambodian Life in the Kingdom would develop confidence in the market and ...

Often vilified for paying low wages in less than optimum work environments, Cambodia’s garment factory owners got into the swing of the commune elections this week, with many companies providing loans to help their workers travel home to vote. With about 400,000 employees, the garment industry’s ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that the government would intervene to stem the riel’s sharp rise against the US dollar in recent days. “The Cambodian riel has been rising for several days,” he told a land-distribution ceremony in Oral district in Kampong Speu province, ...

Cambodia’s nascent life insurance market grew slightly after Manulife Cambodia launched the Manulife Savings Protector yesterday. Combining savings and protection, it will provide life protection for 10 or 15 years to create an estate for relatives in case of untimely death and offer benefits from ...

Cambodia’s Deputy Prime Minister yesterday reiterated his commitment to criminalising money laundering and terrorist financing in the Kingdom. Sok An reassured delegates at the Asia-Pacific Group (APG) on Money Laundering of Cambodia’s commitment to implementing comprehensive procedures to stop illegal monetary transactions. ...

Loans and deposits at Cambodia’s 32 micro-finance institutions and four NGOs, as well as small loans from Acleda Bank, rose sharply last year compared with a year earlier. Industry players say this is a result of the Kingdom’s rapid economic improvement and political stability. Official data from ...

An offshore financial services provider aiming to cater to expatriates in Cambodia hopes to tap into a market that has had its share of fly-by-night operators. Tag Wealth International, a subsidiary of the Australia-based Tag Group, began operations last month, offering advice in areas such as ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong met with Senator Jim Webb, of Virginia, this week, to discuss how Cambodia might be forgiven war-era debt to the US or find a better way to pay it off. Cambodia owes nearly $450 million on pre-Khmer Rouge borrowing. ...

Manulife Financial Corp, Canada’s largest life insurer, has set up shop in Cambodia, hoping to tap into an emerging middle class in the southeast Asian country. The move is part of the Toronto-based company’s strategy of targeting profit growth in Asia as part of its plan ...

PRASAC Microfinance Institution, celebrating its eighteenth anniversary this year in the Cambodia microfinance market, has increased its registered capital from 15-4 billion riel to 80 billion riel. The increase of the share capital has been authorized by the National Bank of Cambodia and the company is now amending its Articles of Incorporation. PRASAC’s share capital is ...

Almost five months after the launch of the Credit Bureau Cambodia (CBC), experts agree that it has given financial institutions valuable new access to information about creditworthiness of potential borrowers, improving efficiency and loan quality. At the same time, there are still a few rough ...

The value of deposits with Cambodia’s 31 microfinance institutions grew more than 96 per cent in the first nine months of the year compared to last year, a rise industry experts say is due to the political stability and economic growth of the Kingdom. Official data ...

Maruhan Japan Bank yesterday became the first commercial Bank in Cambodia to make a direct equity investment into a microfinance institution by becoming Sathapana’s majority shareholder, with a 95.1 per cent stake. Financial details were not disclosed. The shareholders who sold out to Maruhan were FMO, ...

Access to finance could reduce violence, empower the most vulnerable in society and improve the livelihoods of Cambodia’s poorest people, a conference on community-led funding heard on Wednesday. Sarah Sitts, country manager of the international NGO Pact, introduced the funding model of savings-led micro-finance (SLMF). In ...

Cambodia’s largest microfinance institution, (MFI) Prasac, has received a $60.5 million loan to strengthen its capacity in offering broader financial services in the country. On Friday, Prasac signed the agreement for the syndicate loan – provided by more than one lender – with the Netherlands Development ...

E. Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), the Banking arm of E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), yesterday announced plans to buy a 70 percent stake in Phnom Penh, Cambodia-based Union Commercial Bank PLC (UCB) for US$69.33 million to facilitate its expansion into Southeast Asia. “We decided to ...

Acleda Bank, a leading commercial Bank in Cambodia, on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding with UnionPay International on payment services for mutual benefits, according to the Bank’s statement. Xu Luode, president of China UnionPay and vice-chairman of UnionPay International, said currently, UnionPay cards reached ...

Cambodia’s insurance sector earned a total premium of 22 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of the year, up 25 percent from the 17.6 million U.S. dollars it made over the same period last year, the industry’s figures showed Tuesday. The premiums were from ...

More economic activity and a better understanding of using formal financial services among rural residents are leading to good loan performance rates and increases in savings deposits in Cambodia’s microfinance industry, according to industry sources. The loan portfolios of the 35 registered microfinance institutions (MFI) and ...