Thailand
Cambodia: NBC launches CSS system for common payment, withdrawal
The National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) yesterday launched the Cambodian Shared Switch (CSS) system that will enable financial service consumers to make interbank transactions such as cash withdrawals, fund transfers, balance inquiries and account statements through ATM (Automatic Teller Machines) debit cards.
Consumers who hold ATM debit cards with the CSS logo can also use ATM machines with the same logo to withdraw cash or enquire bank account balance and avail many other banking services without paying fees even though they are holding a card provided by one bank, while the ATM machine they are using belongs to another local bank.
However, consumers can use the ATM cards with POS or ATM machines for free if the cards and machines developed and deployed by banks and financial institutions are members of this electronic banking system.
The CSS system was launched in a ceremony presided over by NBC Deputy Governor Chea Serey and attended by approximately 200 national and international guests from the central bank and private banks and financial institutions including Sok Voeun, Chairman of Cambodia Microfinance Association (CMA), Char Sopheap, Payments Committee Chairman of the Association of Banks in Cambodia (ABC) and Ivana Tranchini, VISA’s Country Manager for Cambodia at the Center for Banking Studies (CBS) in Phnom Penh.
Serey said that the CSS system would provide banking and financial service consumers with another option in addition to the KHQR code that is already available at most counters of merchants in Cambodia, which would be dependent on the behaviour of consumers in making payments with electronic or digital systems developed by NBC.
Serey told Khmer Times on the sidelines of the launching event that with the CSS system, the number of ATM machines will decline as some of those machines in the same room would be separated to other places where ATM machines are not available. “It is the right of institutions to take the machines out or not in the mechanism of free market economy, but we will let them know ATM gathering that like does not bring economic gains,” she said.
“Previously when a bank issued a card, especially a debit card for its customer, that card can be used with ATMs machines deployed by that bank only. Customers cannot use that card to withdraw cash from ATM machines of other banks or make payments with POS machines developed by other banks, which put consumers in an inconvenient position,” said Serey.
Serey further pointed out that more than 50 banks and financial institutions have participated in the CSS system which would also reduce the consumption of electricity and space by separating some ATM machines from the same air-conditioned room to other places where these machines are unavailable. In other words, it would increase financial inclusion in Cambodia.
Talking about the CSS system, Sopheap, who represented ABC at the event, also told Khmer Times that “one card fits all ATM and POS machines in the country”.
“The tradition of banking competition has still continued, but I think when each bank and financial institutions have to understand each other, they would stop competing with each other like that, and instead they would talk to one another to separate those ATM machines from just one place to many other parts of the country unlike the current gathering,” Sopheap added.
Voeun said the CSS system would enable consumers to perform many types of interbank transactions more conveniently and faster through POS and ATMs of participating banks and financial institutions nationwide such as interbank money transfers, cash withdrawals, balance checking, checking mini or summary financial reports and many other interbank transactions.
However, Voeun, who is also the CEO of deposit-taking microfinance institution LOLC (Cambodia) Plc, asked NBC to work with all participating institutions to set the maximum limit per day and the amount of withdrawable cash per transaction from each ATM. “It would make it easier for consumers to remember and transact those machines,” Voeun said.
According to NBC’s Annual Supervision Report 2022, the number of ATMs and POS that commercials and specialised banks have deployed have increased to 4,524 machines and 30,031 terminals, their customers have used 4,574,686 debit cards and 185,360 credit cards countrywide.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501318852/nbc-launches-css-system-for-common-payment-withdrawal/