Currency exchange under payments dollarization: converting a source of efficiency loss into a catalyst for financial development in Cambodia

Payments dollarization necessitates firms to take on a burden of currency exchange even for domestic transactions, which is regarded as an economy-wide efficiency loss. However, currency exchange, if seized by banks, can serve as a catalyst for financial development. Using a firm-level dataset from an original survey that reveals the prevalence of currency exchange due to payments dollarization, our study adopts the logit model approach to investigate firms’ decisions on currency exchange methods. The empirical results confirm that firms’ dependence on cash payment and their perception of price differences influence their decisions. Specifically, a high ratio of cash expenditure to total expenditure and their perception of money changers being competitive in price are associated with firms’ preference of money changers to banks. Our findings suggest effective policy interventions for the promotion of currency exchange at banks, including disclosure of currency exchange rates by the central bank for firms’ informed decisions as well as the concurrent promotion of non-cash payment methods.