Two Cambodian university students have taken second place in the finals of a regional stock trading competition.

The final of CIMB Bank’s ASEAN Stock Challenge was held at the Thailand Stock Exchange yesterday.

Team “Dark Rangers”, made up of Lymeng Chhim and Sovannarong Koek, two students from Zaman University in Phnom Penh clinched second place and walked away with an $8,000 cash prize.

“They beat teams from Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand even though it was the first time Cambodia had ever participated in the competition and despite the fact that Cambodia’s stock market is new and not very active,” Soleak Seang, spokesman for CIMB Bank in Cambodia said via email.

The CIMB ASEAN Stock Challenge is a cross-border stock trading simulation platform, which gives students the opportunity to wager pretend funds on Asean securities and financial markets.

Chhim and Koek beat 31 teams to win the Cambodia national round of the stock challenge in December. The duo turned their $80,000 of false funds into $151,000, a capital increase of 90 per cent.