Lao PDR Annual Monitor 2015

Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), a country in Southeast Asia with 6.8 million people, has started the journey towards digitizing its cash-based economy and introducing digital financial services (DFS) to thousands of previously unbanked customers. Lao PDR is currently in the early stages of the Inception phase of the DFS market. There are several providers in the market that have begun to develop their DFS offerings; however, the lack of regulations has limited their ability to launch services. In Q1 2015, the regulator released draft guidelines for providers (banks and non-banks) to implement DFS and for the market to begin its journey to the Start-Up phase.