Low number of credit card use in Cambodia

In the last decade banking sector in Cambodia is receiving confidence from people. Cambodians living in cities and big provinces has started taking their money to banks rather than keeping at home. On the other hand, the limited number of users is holding credit card in Cambodia. Majority of holders who are using credit card are businessmen, a middle class, living in the capital and other urban centers.

The number of credit card use is very low because of the absence of consumer credit histories and a central bureau, including Cambodian cultural barriers. In order to increase the use of credit cards, education is very important to widespread to people

In addition, there are still not the essential services for a stable credit card market in Cambodia, especially creating credit history database and a centralized credit bureau for helping commercial banks to make decision to accept credit-worthy consumers.  This is good factor for commercial banks to be less likely to issue cards to their consumers who need cards if they don’t maintain a deposit of coming kind at the bank as collateral.

The National Bank of Cambodia [NBC] released figures by showing that using credit-card loans amounted to US$6.5 million, only 0.2 percent, of the US$3.1 billion in the total loan in November 2010. What the NBC defines as loans for “personal essentials”, which include personal lending, credit cards and home mortgages, the number is 2 percent of the $297,437,750 total in lending for the month.