Japan blockchain startup seeks to build Asian digital payment network

System would link Japan, India, China and Southeast Asia using Cambodia's digital currency

20230807N Cambodia

People check their phones in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's central bank digital currency seeing growing use for cross-border transactions. © Reuters

KEITA SEKIGUCHI, Nikkei staff writer

TOKYO -- Japanese fintech developer Soramitsu has joined an effort to build a cross-border payment system for Asian countries involving Cambodia's central bank digital currency, the core of a growing international network.

Soramitsu has supported the issuance of Asian CBDCs Bakong in Cambodia and Laos' Digital Lao Kip. Bakong is already used for QR code-based digital payments between Cambodia and Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. As of the end of 2022, it had 8.5 million users and handled around $15 billion in payments.

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