Kathmandu, August 17

Nepal Clearing House Ltd today officially launched Interbank Payment System (NCHL-IPS) with 58 banks and financial institutions as its participating members.

NCHL-IPS is an interbank payment solution, which facilitates domestic fund transfer between accounts, maintained at different banks and financial Institutions (BFIs). It supports both direct debit (collections) and direct credit (transfers) types of transactions between the participating members, according to a media release.

The underlying transaction products that will be supported in the initial phase are customer transfer, treasury payment and government payment. Other products like salary, pension, social security, dividend, IPO refunds, premiums, instalments, fees, etcetera including both individual and repetitive volume based payments will be introduced gradually in phases.

NCHL believes that the system will promote non-paper based transactions, support financial transparency and improve efficiency of the payment mechanisms in the country. “It will help improve payment service delivery via faster payments, funding, collection, and increased liquidity,” the release says.

BFIs are enrolled within NCHL-IPS as direct members whereas other institutions like non-bank financial institutions, government organisations and large corporates will be enrolled as indirect or technical members.

NCHL-IPS system has already been subscribed by 59 BFIs as direct members and three remittance companies as indirect members as of date. The customers will be able to avail NCHL-IPS services through the member BFIs.

NCHL is a public limited company promoted by Nepal Rastra Bank, commercial banks, development banks, finance companies and Smart Choice Technologies (SCT) P Ltd, with an objective to establish multiple national payment and settlement systems in Nepal. Its electronic cheque clearing system (NCHL-ECC) is already in operation with over 113 BFIs as its members with coverage of over 2,749 branches.