National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) director-general Chea Serey. POST PIX/FILE
National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) director-general Chea Serey was tapped on July 26 as an advisory board member of ASEAN Financial Innovation Network (AFIN) where she hopes to see more Cambodian financial technology (fintech) players and financial institutions (FI) on the API Exchange (APIX) platform.
AFIN was set up with the mission to facilitate innovation and cooperation between FIs and fintechs, in effort to digitally transform the banking and financial sectors across the ASEAN region and beyond to ultimately drive financial inclusion.
It brings together financial industry participants to discover, design and deploy innovative digital solutions within a collaborative ecosystem.
Serey wrote on her official Facebook page: “I am honoured to be invited as an advisory board member of [AFIN]. AFIN has launched the APIX. APIX is the world’s first cross-border, open-architecture API [application programming interface] marketplace and sandbox platform for collaboration between fintechs and FIs in which participants can integrate and test solutions with each other via a cloud-based architecture.
“This is an opportunity for fintech in ASEAN, and beyond, to show the world what they’ve got. I used to say ‘it’s in our struggle that we find creativity’. In this case, ASEAN doesn’t lack struggles and it doesn’t lack innovative ideas either. It is a rising star! Personally, I look forward to see more Cambodian fintech players and FIs on the APIX platform,” she added.
Under her directorship, NBC on October 27th launched an inter-bank mobile payment platform, known as the “Bakong System”, aiming to give a powerful impetus to rural financial sector development and nurturing financial inclusivity in the Kingdom.
Bakong enables interoperability between banks and financial institutions that is safe and cost-effective.
The AFIN was established as a non-profit organisation in 2018 by the ASEAN Bankers Association (ABA), World Bank member International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the city-state’s central bank. AMTD Foundation and Mastercard are AFIN’s corporate founding members.
