Current Position & Biography
Chea Serey, also identified in English-language sources as Serey Chea, is Governor of the National Bank of Cambodia. Her role is confirmed by the 2026 Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum biography and an October 2026 interview with Global Finance. Her direct blockchain relevance comes from leadership associated with Bakong, Cambodia’s distributed-ledger-based national payment infrastructure.
The Tsinghua biography connects her work with financial inclusion, interoperability and financial education. Bakong is an institutional initiative involving the central bank and financial-service providers, rather than a privately issued token associated with her personally. This profile does not attribute its software engineering or every implementation decision to the governor alone.
Notable Contributions
In a June 2020 OMFIF interview, when Bakong was approaching launch, Serey explained the problem it was intended to address: banks and payment-service providers had separate customer networks and applications that did not communicate effectively. She described a shared platform intended to let institutions connect through a common application or integrate it with their existing services.
That interview is also an important source for terminology. Serey explicitly described Bakong as a backbone payment system rather than a conventional central-bank digital currency. She discussed digitised fiat money in riel and US dollars and the respective roles of the central bank, banks and payment-service providers. A blockchain-based payment network should therefore not automatically be described as a new cryptocurrency, nor should digital payment activity be treated as speculative crypto trading.
The 2026 Tsinghua biography identifies the introduction of Bakong as part of her leadership record and emphasises interoperability. This provides continuity between the earlier explanation of the project and her current public-policy role, without turning the project’s institutional achievements into a claim of sole personal authorship.
In the October 2026 Global Finance interview, Serey discussed further development of domestic payment functions, international connectivity and remittances. She also described enhanced customer-verification requirements and priorities involving consumer protection, cybersecurity and fraud detection. These statements are the governor’s account of the bank’s priorities; they are not independent proof that every safeguard is effective or that all implementation goals have been achieved.
Why Katharos Is Following Them
Serey’s work offers a practical example of distributed-ledger technology being used to connect financial institutions and payment providers. It makes questions about interoperability, institutional responsibilities and ordinary payment use more concrete than discussion focused only on token prices.
Her public explanations also help separate the technology supporting a payment system from the legal nature of the money moving through it. That distinction is important when comparing Bakong with stablecoins, central-bank digital currencies and other digital-asset arrangements.
Areas to Follow
Relevant areas include the effectiveness of cross-border connections, adoption by merchants and consumers, accessibility for people with limited financial-service access, and the relationship between payment innovation and supervision. Future reporting should distinguish announced plans from operational services and reported transaction counts from independently assessed outcomes.
Reporting Scope
Coverage concerns documented payment-policy responsibilities and statements. Financial-integrity safeguards remain an important part of the story: in her 2026 interview, Serey discussed anti-money-laundering measures and the misuse of virtual and digital assets. These statements should not be read as a guarantee of system safety or as evidence of personal involvement in misconduct by third parties.
Katharos Category
Policy & Regulation
Photo Credit
Archival photograph: © World Economic Forum / Jakob Polacsek, “Sustaining a Cashless Society”, Dalian, July 3, 2019. CC BY 2.0. Cropped and resized. Original photograph: Source 5; license: Source 6.