The private sector and government institutions met on Thursday in Phnom Penh to discuss the digital transformation in the Kingdom’s financial industry.

The 2019 Conference on Global Digital Transformation was attended by more than 100 domestic and international professionals.

Representing the government at the event was Minister of Industry and Handicraft Cham Prasidh and Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications representatives.

Key topics discussed at the conference were the dynamic global trend of digital transformation in the financial industry, current government policies and the vital infrastructure technologies in the Kingdom’s financial industry.

The conference was organised by Kepstar Data Center Management Co Ltd, a licensee to build and operate Tier III data centres in Cambodia in collaboration with the National Institute of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Communication Technology.

PwC Singapore managing director Sigfried Ching said the event focused mainly on sustainable business administration through technology.

“Entities in Cambodia are getting bigger and more complex, requiring technology development to reduce threats for their operations,” he said.

During the conference, Prasidh said the number of business operators in Cambodia is growing, demanding technology development in the business sector.

“Responding to the growing demand of supply chains in the SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] sector which continue to grow, we need to strengthen the use of technology,” he said.

Vivek Gullapalli, cyber risk partner and chief information security officer at Singapore’s Inok Systems Pte Ltd, said cybercrime will cost the world as much as $6 trillion per annum by 2021.