Bakong

Overview

Note on classification. This entry was originally bucketed as a QR standard, but bakong is not a QR-symbol standard — it is a blockchain-based settlement rail (see khqr for the QR layer). Reclassified as Blockchain. The wiki shows no playground because there is no QR payload to encode; the slug is retained to avoid breaking incoming links.

Bakong is Cambodia's national blockchain-based payment platform, launched 28 October 2020 by the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) in partnership with Soramitsu (Japanese blockchain developer) using the Hyperledger Iroha permissioned distributed-ledger framework [1, 2, 3, [kh-cro]]. Bakong is the foundational interbank rail that khqr (Cambodia's national EMV QR standard) sits on top of — making it analogous to how India's UPI rail sits beneath upi-qr, or how Singapore's FAST sits beneath paynow-qr.

A widely-cited but contested classification question: is Bakong a CBDC? Despite frequent press characterisation as Cambodia's central bank digital currency, NBC officially clarified that Bakong is NOT a CBDC — it is "a common platform for commercial banks, microfinance institutions (MFIs) and payment service providers (PSPs) to deliver e-wallet and money transfer services" [1]. By 2024, Bakong had achieved extraordinary scale: 30 million wallets, 608 million transactions worth US $104.81 billion (330 % of Cambodia's GDP), +95 % growth YoY, and 4.5 million accepting merchants KH. Cross-border QR interoperability with Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, India makes Bakong one of the most cross-border-active payment rails globally — alongside twqr and upi-qr.

History

Background — Cambodia's payment landscape pre-Bakong KH:

• Highly dollarised economy — US dollar circulated alongside Cambodian riel; ~90 % of bank deposits were USD.
• NBC strategic goal: de-dollarise the economy, promote riel usage.
• Banking penetration low: ~78 % of citizens unbanked, yet >50 % owned smartphones — the conditions for mobile-first leapfrog.

2017-2019 — Bakong design + pilot [3, 4]:

• NBC engages Soramitsu (Tokyo-based blockchain firm) to architect the system.
• Choice of Hyperledger Iroha — a permissioned, BFT-consensus DLT framework with strong account/asset management primitives.
• 18 July 2019 — pilot testing begins.

28 October 2020 — Bakong officially launches [2, 3, 4]:

• NBC launches Bakong as a real-time mobile payment system.
• Dual-currency: supports both USD and KHR (Cambodian riel).
• Closed-loop permissioned blockchain — only authorised FIs can write transactions; no public mining.

2020+ — rapid adoption KH:

• Three years post-launch (~2023): 25+ million transactions, $15B+ value (per NBC reporting).
• Continued accelerating; by 2024, 608M transactions / $104.81B.

Cross-border expansion (KHQR/Bakong as foundation) KH:

• Cross-border QR partnerships with Singapore (NETS), Japan (PayPay/UnionPay), South Korea (BC Card), Malaysia (duitnow-qr), Thailand (promptpay-qr), India (upi-qr).
• This 6-country cross-border footprint is among the largest of any national QR-rail globally.

2024 macro statistics KH:

• 30 million Bakong wallets.
• 4.5 million accepting merchants.
• 608 million transactions worth US $104.81 billion.
• 330 % of Cambodian GDP flowing through Bakong annually — astonishing penetration.
• +95 % YoY growth.
• 57 financial institutions as Bakong members.

Technical specification

Bakong is built on Hyperledger Iroha permissioned DLT [2, 3, 4]:

Layer	Description
Operator	National Bank of Cambodia (NBC)
Technology partner	Soramitsu (Tokyo, Japan)
Distributed-ledger framework	Hyperledger Iroha (permissioned BFT DLT)
Consensus	YAC (Yet Another Consensus) — BFT
Currencies	KHR (Cambodian riel) + USD
Settlement	Real-time
Participants	57 FIs (banks, MFIs, PSPs)
QR overlay	khqr — Cambodia's national EMV QR standard
Cross-border	SG (NETS), JP, KR, MY (duitnow-qr), TH (promptpay-qr), IN (upi-qr)

Hyperledger Iroha specifics [2, 4]:

• Account-based model (not UTXO).
• Native support for multi-currency assets — critical for KHR + USD coexistence.
• Closed-loop permissioned: only authorised member institutions can append to the ledger.
• YAC consensus — Byzantine-fault-tolerant, faster than Proof-of-Work, deterministic finality.

Why "not a CBDC" per NBC's own characterisation [1, 4]:

• Bakong does NOT issue new fiat money — it's a settlement layer atop existing bank deposits.
• Funds in Bakong wallets are backed by deposits at participating commercial banks/MFIs.
• This makes Bakong structurally a wholesale-DLT-with-retail-overlay, not a true CBDC like the e-CNY or eNaira.

Cross-border architecture KH:

• Bilateral / multilateral linkages with each partner rail.
• Cambodian customers can scan a promptpay-qr in Thailand; Thai customers can scan khqr in Cambodia — both settled in their home currency.

Use cases

P2P transfers [1, [kh-cro]]: Send to any Bakong wallet via phone number — dominant use case for unbanked-to-banked transfers, dollar-to-riel, etc.

P2M merchant payments [1]: 4.5M+ merchants accept Bakong via khqr QR — small shops, restaurants, market vendors. Bakong's strategic raison-d'être.

Cross-border (in/out-bound tourism + remittance) KH: Cambodian tourist in Thailand scans promptpay-qr; Thai/Malaysian/Indian tourist in Cambodia scans khqr. Each pays in home currency.

De-dollarisation [4]: NBC's strategic objective — Bakong's KHR convenience reduces incentive to hold/transact in USD. Has measurably moved KHR usage upward since 2020.

Bill payment, government services, utility KH: Bakong-integrated public-sector flows.

Cross-bank, cross-MFI, cross-PSP KH: 57 FIs participating means a Bakong wallet user can transact with any other Bakong wallet user regardless of which institution issued it.

Implementations & ecosystem

Operator: National Bank of Cambodia (NBC).

Technology partner: Soramitsu (Japan) — Hyperledger Iroha contributors and Bakong architects.

57 Bakong members include KH:

• ACLEDA Bank — largest commercial bank, khqr operator
• Canadia Bank, ABA Bank, PPC Bank, Sathapana Bank
• Plus 52 additional banks, MFIs, and PSPs

No public open-source SDK from NBC, but Hyperledger Iroha is OSS — third parties can study the underlying DLT framework.

Fun facts

• Not a CBDC despite the headlines: Press worldwide labelled Bakong a CBDC alongside the Sand Dollar and Bahamian crypto experiments; NBC has explicitly clarified it is NOT a CBDC — a wholesale-DLT-backed e-wallet system, not new sovereign money issuance. A useful taxonomic case study.
• Hyperledger Iroha — Japanese provenance: Soramitsu, a Tokyo-based firm, is a primary contributor to Iroha and chose Cambodia as a flagship national-scale deployment. The Cambodia-Japan technical partnership has expanded into broader fintech cooperation.
• 330 % of GDP flowing through Bakong annually: An extraordinary penetration metric. Compare with m-pesa-ke (~50 % of Kenyan GDP via M-Pesa) and Bakong is structurally deeper.
• 6-country cross-border footprint: Among the most cross-border-active national rails — partly because Cambodia's small size + tourism dependence makes cross-border interop strategically critical.
• 30M wallets in a 17M-population country: Average ~1.8 wallets per Cambodian — many people hold accounts at multiple FIs that all interconnect via Bakong.
• 78 % unbanked → 30M wallets: Bakong achieved mobile-money-level financial inclusion at central-bank-rail scale, leapfrogging the traditional banking-account-first path.
• +95 % YoY in 2024: Among the fastest-growing major national payment rails globally — a steeper curve than even India's upi-qr at equivalent maturity.
• Hyperledger Iroha + YAC consensus: One of the few national payment rails running on a permissioned BFT DLT (most run on traditional databases). Cambodia's tech-choice is a real-world stress test of DLT-for-national-payments.

Comparison

Feature	Bakong (KH)	khqr (KH overlay)	upi-qr (IN)	m-pesa-ke (KE)	sand-dollar (BS)
Launch	Oct 2020	2020 (atop Bakong)	2016	2007	Oct 2020
Operator	NBC (central bank)	NBC/ACLEDA	NPCI	Safaricom	Central Bank of Bahamas
Tech	Hyperledger Iroha DLT	EMVCo MPM	NPCI proprietary	Closed loop	DLT (mDigital Currency)
Status	Wholesale DLT + retail overlay	National QR	National rail	Mobile-money MNO	Retail CBDC
2024 volume	608M txns / $104.81B	n/a (subset of Bakong)	UPI $2.4T+	n/a	Small
% GDP	330 %	n/a	substantial	~50 %	small
Cross-border	6 countries	Via Bakong	Multiple	Vodafone group	None

Closest peer: khqr — Bakong is the underlying rail; khqr is the QR overlay. They are inseparable in practice.

Structural distinction: Bakong is one of the few national payment rails built on permissioned DLT — a real-world validation of Hyperledger Iroha at retail scale.

Status

Active, extraordinary scale [[kh-cro], 3]:

• 30M wallets; 4.5M merchants; 57 FIs.
• 608M transactions / $104.81B value in 2024 (330 % of Cambodian GDP).
• +95 % YoY growth.
• Cross-border with SG, JP, KR, MY, TH, IN.
• Hyperledger Iroha DLT infrastructure (Soramitsu).
• NOT a CBDC per NBC clarification.

Outlook: Continued scaling toward Bakong-as-payment-default in Cambodia, deeper cross-border integrations (likely Vietnam, Laos), and probable Soramitsu-Bakong technology being marketed to other emerging-market central banks.

Sources

• 1 NBC official
• 2 Soramitsu × Iroha case study
• 3 Cambodia digital currency — Soramitsu
• 4 WEF Bakong analysis
• [kh-cro] reports/countries/KH-cambodia.md

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

• KH — KH-cambodia.md
• MY — MY-malaysia.md