Prakas on Management of Payment Transactions Services Institution

The National Bank of Cambodia (“NBC”) has issued a Prakas on Management of Payment Transactions Services Institution dated 14th June 2017. The Prakas is made to determine the procedure for licensing Payment Transactions Services providers, to encourage fair competition and innovation and to gain public trust.

The Prakas governs both Payment Transactions Services providers and Banks. However, services such as information technology support, data storage and processor, payment transactions using bank’s location and so on are excluded from the Prakas’s purview.

Unlike Third Party Processor, which is a service provider or processor to facilitate bank’s payment transactions services and operations, Payment Transactions Services provider is independent. The Prakas has stipulated the scope of business of Payment Transactions Services provider in Article 6 and 7 that it can engage in businesses such as deposit and withdrawal in payment account service, money transfer service, payment transaction service, providing short term credit, issuing electronic currency, money changer and so on. However, money that Payment Transaction Services providers have received from payment transaction and issuing e-currency is not deemed to be deposit.

To operate as Payment Transactions Services provider, legal entities must obtain license from the NBC. Legal entities need to fulfill numbers of conditions to obtain license from NBC. For example, legal entities need to describe the type of payment transaction service that it will operate, business plan, evidences of capital sufficiency and so on. On top of that, the Prakas requires the legal entities to have minimum capital of 8,000 million Riel (around USD2 million) in cash and 5% of the minimum capital must be deposited with NBC. Nevertheless, the license to operate as Payment Transactions Services provider is valid in six years but it is renewable.

With regard to fee, legal entities need to pay 500,000 Riel (around USD125) for application form plus inquiry and 2,000,000 Riel (around USD500) for having the documents reviewed. Also, legal entities are required to pay annual fee of 20,000,000 Riel (around USD5000).

The Prakas also states about merger and acquisition in Article 24 that Payment Transactions Services providers must gain approval from NBC if it intends to merge with other institutions, transfer or be acquired in part or whole of its business or cease its business operation. Besides, NBC has right to delicense or suspend any Payment Transactions Services providers’ operation that fail to operate within six months, engage in fraud or forgery, be non-compliance with NBC’s supervision and so on.