Most common payment methods in Cambodia

Hi Cheryl! I'll just talk about what I do. I use QR payments for just about everything from small vendors in the local markets to food to buying clothing. Whatever. ABA is the bank but KHQR is the network which goes across most banks here. When you buy something here, you don't need to worry about what currency really. I use Riel on my US dollar account and I also use dollars on the Riel account. I have a Visa card which I have used one time when I screwed up using the mobile app and it locked down for an hour. I needed that beer :-).  ABA ATM machines are pretty cool all in all. I can use the mobile app and withdraw money from an ABA ATM machine using a private code the machine provides. ABA and likely other banks allow a person to link the accounts to a variety of services.  I use ABA to pay for grab and passapp for ride hailing, food, etc.  I also pay my mobile service using the linked account on Smart's mobile app. Buying bus or minivan service is easy with ABA too. I've used ABA to pay for bus and minivan tickets a number of times.

To transfer money into Cambodia, I use moneygram. Lately using the moneygram mobile app, it takes me less than 1 minute to get a transfer into my ABA dollar account. Pretty nice. One can also use Western Union, Xoom, probably others.

The whole QR code thing has made making purchases very easy. I hardly carry cash since even the nice Khmer woman I buy fresh mango from at the big market has her ABA QR code available.  My partner says its better to use Riel for small purchases and not the QR code. I always forget and no one seems to mind. 

To me, banking in Cambodia wherever I am from Siem Reap to Battambang or Kampot or Phnom Penh is very easy. I don't use US bank debit cards any more since it costs less to transfer the money into ABA than pay the international fees. I do get them refunded on Schwab but I just lock the US bank debit cards now and only unlock them when I use Moneygram since it uses my debit card. It also means zero fraudulent charges since locking the cards online means no fraud charges.