A Cambodian garment worker can receive a salary in dollars and spend almost the entire month in riel. The conversion happens in a banking app, at a money changer or inside the merchant's calculation. It looks frictionless because the currencies have lived together for decades. It still places the exchange decision—and its cost—on the worker.
The checkout has already moved faster than payday. Cambodia's Bakong network processed 771.2 million riel transactions in 2025, against 554.5 million dollar transactions. The riel became the busier digital currency while factory wages remained overwhelmingly denominated in US dollars. National Bank of Cambodia 2025 annual report, in Khmer
ParallaxSee forecasts that by the end of 2032, Cambodia's legally binding minimum wage for the garment, footwear and travel-goods industries will be primarily denominated in riel, and a majority of formal private-sector employees will receive at least half of their normal wages in riel. House confidence: 70%.
The US dollar will retain a powerful Cambodian role in deposits, property and large contracts. The riel will become the country's operating currency: the unit in which a working month begins. Cambodia will change money through payroll software, one repeated payment at a time.
01 — The riel has already won the digital checkout.
Bakong processed 1.325 billion transactions in 2025. Riel payments accounted for 771.2 million of them, about 58% of the total, while dollar payments accounted for 554.5 million. The value moving through both channels also rose quickly: riel transactions reached KHR 285.9 trillion, up 59.4% from 2024, and dollar transactions reached $152.8 billion, up 49.3%. National Bank of Cambodia 2025 annual report, in Khmer Cambodian state news report on Bakong's 2025 growth
These figures make a forecast about the riel eventually becoming popular in QR payments obsolete. That event is here. The next contest concerns the balance that arrives before the QR code is scanned.
Cambodia's achievement is larger than one successful wallet. Bakong links banks, payment institutions and users across a common settlement infrastructure. KHQR gives merchants one standard code instead of a different code for each provider. By the end of 2024, roughly 4.5 million merchant accounts could accept KHQR, 69 institutions were connected or integrating, and bank accounts or wallets capable of reaching Bakong numbered about 30 million. That last figure counts financial relationships rather than unique Cambodians, which is why it exceeds the population. NBC Annual Report 2024
A currency becomes convenient when the network stops asking which bank a customer uses. Cambodia has built that network. Riel wages can now enter a system in which practically every formal merchant already knows how to receive them.
02 — Bakong made the currency choice a line of software.
Bakong is often described as a central-bank digital currency. Its practical design is more useful than that label. A customer holds riel or dollar balances through a participating bank or wallet; Bakong supplies the common ledger and transfer rail that lets those balances move instantly between institutions. The money remains backed by deposits and central-bank settlement rather than becoming a speculative token. Design of a CBDC in a Highly Dollarized Emerging Market: Cambodia
KHQR then turns interoperability into a physical object. A stall, café or pharmacy displays one square. The buyer's bank recognises it, the merchant's institution receives it and Bakong settles the payment. The same code can present a riel account, a dollar account or both.
This architecture removed the strongest everyday argument for the dollar: universal acceptance. Paper dollars once won because everybody expected the next person to accept them. KHQR gives the riel the same network effect without requiring every participant to change banks, install the same wallet or handle a thick bundle of notes.
Sok Heng Lay of the National Bank of Cambodia describes interoperable digital payments as an instrument of de-dollarisation because they lower transaction costs while making the domestic currency easier to use. Advancing Digital Payment in a Dollarized Economy Cambodia has implemented the mechanism at national scale. Payroll is the next configuration change.
03 — Cambodian workers earn in one currency and live in another.
The best map of this mismatch comes from research commissioned by the National Bank of Cambodia and UNDP. The study surveyed 1,068 workers and 114 factories in Phnom Penh and four provinces, covering garment, footwear, travel-goods and bag production. Of the workers, 888 were women. NBC–UNDP study of riel wage payments
The surveyed households received 88% of their income in dollars. They made 87.6% of their expenditure in riel. Food and drink—the largest spending category—was 99.9% riel. Transportation was entirely riel. Utilities, personal care, clothing and medical expenses were overwhelmingly riel. Rent was the conspicuous dollar expense.
The factory accounts explain where the split begins. Sales revenue at the surveyed factories was entirely in dollars. Wages represented 82.2% of factory expenditure, and 89.8% of wage payments were made in dollars. Paying workers in the export currency simplifies the employer's books. It transfers the currency conversion to every household.
The researchers estimated that the mismatch costs households around 1.2% of income. At Cambodia's 2026 garment minimum wage of $210 a month, that proportion equals $2.52 each month or $30.24 a year. Cambodian regulation setting the 2026 garment minimum wage, in Khmer The figure is small to a factory treasury. It is several days of food or transport to the worker who performs the conversion twelve times a year.
Riel payroll converts once at industrial scale. Dollar payroll makes each worker convert alone. That is the economic pressure that will move payday.
04 — The first payroll migration began inside the financial system.
In 2026, the Association of Banks in Cambodia began moving salaries into riel. Its chairman, Rath Sophoan, said the initial objective was to have at least 25% of banking employees receive riel salaries during the year, followed by a staged expansion over the next three to four years. The Cambodia Microfinance Association was simultaneously working through whether salaries should be fully in riel or split between riel and dollars. Cambodianess on the 2026 riel-payroll initiative
Banks are the ideal first adopters. They already manage both currencies, possess the liquidity tools, operate the payroll systems and understand the central bank's objective. Their employees can receive riel without waiting for a new consumer application. A policy decision changes the default account.
The migration then has a natural route into factories. Cambodian employers increasingly pay wages digitally, and more than half of the factories registered with Better Factories Cambodia were already using financial institutions for direct wage payments in 2023. ILO review of digital wages in Cambodia's garment industry A digital payroll file can change its currency field more easily than a cash economy can replace millions of notes.
The technical work remains real. Employers need riel liquidity on two monthly paydays. Banks need predictable foreign-exchange conversion, clear account displays and low-cost withdrawal. Workers need protection from fraud, failed transfers and agents who charge for access. Those are banking operations with known solutions. Cambodia no longer faces the harder problem of building a national payment network from nothing.
05 — Payday will create the riel balance that the market consumes.
A payment network changes behaviour through defaults. Today a dollar salary creates a dollar balance. The worker then chooses whether, when and where to convert it before buying necessities in riel. A riel salary arrives ready for the transactions the household is already making.
The sequence reinforces itself. Employers purchase riel in larger, scheduled blocks. Banks can compete to quote that conversion efficiently. Workers open their app and see the amount they will use for food, transport and family remittances. Merchants receive more riel and pay a larger share of local suppliers in riel. The circulation loop begins at the payroll file instead of the money-changing counter.
The government can strengthen the loop through the payments it already controls. Taxes, social-security contributions, administrative fees and public services create recurring demand for riel. Cambodia's monetary-policy framework now includes riel liquidity facilities, negotiable instruments and an interest-rate corridor designed to make the domestic money market work more effectively. NBC explanation of monetary-policy operations, in Khmer
This is why wages matter more than a patriotic campaign. A poster can ask someone to choose the riel. Payroll places riel in the account before the choice occurs. Repetition turns the currency into the unit in which a household measures the month.
06 — Resistance is visible, measurable and temporary.
The NBC–UNDP survey found that 57% of workers opposed receiving wages in riel, while 41.5% supported it. Only 28.1% of factory-side respondents supported paying in riel. Workers feared exchange-rate risk and valued dollars for saving. Factories matched their dollar payroll to dollar export revenue. The existing system has logic on both sides. NBC–UNDP study of riel wage payments
The same survey contains the path through that resistance. Workers with better exchange-rate knowledge and larger riel expenses were more willing to accept riel wages. Lower-paid households—those spending the greatest share on local necessities—had the clearest reason to support the change. The objection weakens when the rate is trusted, conversion is transparent and the monthly saving becomes visible.
National Bank Governor Chea Serey has consistently argued for attraction instead of a sudden ban. In a Cambodian interview, she described voluntary adoption as the durable approach: “It is more sustainable if the people can show their love toward riel by their own intention and their own practice.” Cambodianess interview with Chea Serey
Payroll provides that gradualism. A company can begin with a riel option, a split salary or one department. Banks can guarantee instant conversion and preserve a dollar savings account beside the riel operating account. Each successful payday produces evidence for the next employer.
By 2032, the convenience will have reversed. Requesting a dollar wage for expenses paid in riel will feel like requesting an extra conversion step.
07 — Cross-border QR is turning the riel into a travelling currency.
Cambodia has connected Bakong and KHQR to payment systems beyond its borders. Links with Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea and major Chinese platforms were operating or expanding by 2024. Japan joined through JPQR in 2025. NBC Annual Report 2024 NBC announcement of the Japan–Cambodia QR connection
The design matters for the riel forecast. Cambodian users can pay at participating foreign merchants from riel-linked accounts. In March 2026, Cambodia and Singapore completed both directions of their QR connection: Cambodian travellers could spend through Singapore's network, while Singaporean visitors could scan KHQR at Cambodian merchants. The Khmer-language launch report said the Cambodian side used riel accounts inside Bakong. Cambodia–Singapore cross-border QR launch, in Khmer
UnionPay integration lets Cambodian users scan supported codes in China and elsewhere, again extending the usefulness of a local account beyond the country. NBC announcement of Bakong–UnionPay outward payments
A dollar once offered a passport: earn it in Phnom Penh, hold it through uncertainty and spend it wherever the next counter recognised it. Bakong gives the riel a digital version of that mobility. The currency remains Cambodian while the acceptance network becomes regional.
This changes the worker's calculation. A riel salary can fund the local month, a family transfer and an overseas QR purchase without first becoming a paper dollar.
08 — The minimum-wage proclamation will be the decisive line of code.
Cambodia's 2026 minimum-wage proclamation sets $210 a month for regular workers and $208 for workers on probation in the textile, garment, footwear, travel-goods and bag industries. The controlling benchmark is written in US dollars even though the law is Cambodian, the workers spend in riel and the national payment network can deliver either currency. Prakas No. 214 on the 2026 minimum wage, Khmer original
Changing that denomination will do more than rename the same value. The annual negotiation among government, unions and employers will begin from a riel number. Payroll software will guarantee that number in riel. Overtime, attendance bonuses and compensation calculations will inherit the unit. Workers and factories can still negotiate dollar references, but the legal floor will no longer move with every exchange-rate calculation.
The banking sector's payroll initiative creates the institutional rehearsal. The garment sector supplies scale and visibility. Together they can establish a riel wage convention that other formal employers copy.
The National Bank and Cambodian legislature already present broader riel use as a way to strengthen monetary-policy effectiveness and sustainable economic development. Khmer-language AKP report on the riel, Bakong and KHQR A minimum wage written in riel gives that national objective a number repeated on nearly a million payslips.
By 2032, the annual wage announcement will be a monetary event as well as a labour negotiation. Cambodia will set the price of work in its own currency.
09 — The dollar will move from the payslip to the vault.
Cambodia's future currency system will contain two strong layers. Riel will circulate through wages, markets, public payments and regional QR connections. Dollars will remain a preferred store of value and a unit for property, imports, export contracts and large financial positions.
Foreign-currency deposits still account for roughly 83% of broad money. IMF 2025 Cambodia consultation That stock will change much more slowly than payment habits. Depositors choose the dollar because decades of instability taught families and firms to value an external anchor. A payroll reform need not ask them to forget that history.
The two-account phone becomes the bridge. Salary enters the riel account. Household spending leaves from it. The portion intended for long-term saving can move into dollars at a visible rate. The worker gains control over the conversion instead of converting nearly the entire wage merely to reach the month's necessities.
The forecast resolves only when the wage system moves. By 31 December 2032, the controlling legal text for Cambodia's garment-sector minimum wage must set its primary amount in riel, and official administrative data or a representative survey must show that more than half of formal private-sector employees receive at least half of their regular wages in riel. A secondary dollar reference may remain. QR growth, riel price labels or voluntary pilot schemes alone will not qualify.
The riel has already become Cambodia's busiest digital payment currency. It has the merchant network, the central-bank infrastructure and a direct household advantage. Payday is the remaining gate. By 2032, Cambodia will open it.
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