Trapped under a mountain of crippling debt, Cambodian farmer Roeurn Reth fears she will have to sell her land to repay microfinance loans that have ballooned due to pandemic-spurred job losses in her family.What started as a US$3,000 sum from a loan shark for her son's wedding has now grown to about US$7,000, she says - the result of additional financial needs that have cropped up.Her sons - who crossed illegally into neighbouring Thailand - previously sent money home to help with repaym

While a recent report by two civil society groups in Cambodia outlining predatory practices by local microfinance institutions (MFIs) may not paint the clearest picture of the sector, there is no denying that there are murky waters ahead.The report by the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and local NGO Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT) documented numerous cases of coerced land sales, child labour, debt-driven migration, food insecurity and other human

With Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam alone hosting over 10 percent of the world’s unbanked population, providing the right infrastructure to bridge this gap is key to ASEAN’s sustained growth.The unbanked and underserved form a significant part of ASEAN’s population, with research firm CB Insights recently stating that just 47 percent of adults in ASEAN had a bank account while only a third of the region’s SMEs had access to loans or lines of credit last year. The region’s financi