PHNOM PENH, Nov. 25 (FN) -- About 54 percent of Cambodia's adults have access to formal financial services, including money deposit, borrowing and transfer, Neav Chanthana, deputy governor of the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), or the central bank, said here on Friday.

The Southeast Asian country has a total population of approximately 15 million, of which nearly 10 million are adults.

"Currently, some 54 percent of the adults have been using formal financial services, remarkably up from roughly 17 percent in a decade ago," she said during a macroeconomic conference, attended by some 300 economists, researchers, and company representatives.

The deputy governor said that the growth clearly reflected the rapid development of banking and financial sector in the kingdom.

Cambodia has 36 commercial banks, 14 specialized banks, 8 representative offices of foreign banks, 57 microfinance institutions, and 160 rural credit operators, according to a NBC report.

The report said the banking and financial institutions had lent 15.7 billion U.S. dollars to customers by June 2016, up 21.7 percent compared to June 2015, and received a total deposit of 14.1 billion U.S. dollars, up 19.6 percent.