The National Bank of Cambodia now allows – for the first time in its history – commercial banks and financial institutions under its regulatory orbit to provide services related to stablecoins.
According to a release of the financial institution, the new provision is intended regulate operations with this type of digital assets.
As explained in the Cryptopedia (educational section of CriptoNoticias), stablecoins are cryptocurrencies or tokens that are backed by another financial asset (for example, the US dollar) with which they maintain parity in their price. USDT and USDC are the largest stablecoins on the market.
Cambodian financial institutions that want to provide cryptocurrency-related services must request authorization from the National Bank. It is completely prohibited for banks to use clients’ crypto assets for their own purposes.. The use of bitcoin (BTC) and most cryptocurrencies also remains prohibited.
Details a local media that, for years, “Cambodia has banned cryptocurrency transactions due to high levels of risk, such as money laundering, fraud and illegal black market activities. According to economic researcher Hong Vanak of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, cryptocurrencies do not bring many benefits to the national economy due to their digital and decentralized nature, and even add complexity in management, taxation and ownership tracking.
Websites like Binance and Coinbase (the two largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world) They are blocked in Cambodia.
Anyway, according to data from Chainalysis, Cambodia is one of the 20 countries with the highest number of cryptocurrency transactionsdespite the prohibitions.
