KATHMANDU: Women’s savings and cooperatives have still not been allowed to deal in remittance, and this is causing seveeral problems in this sector.

Women working in the sector are keen on acquiring the right to deal in remittance at the grass root level. They say that it will be secure as well as act as a savings account for women and families of those people who have gone to work abroad.

Individuals and well as sectors involved in cooperatives, women’s savings and loan cooperatives as well as concerned authorities from various remittance companies today came together to discuss the challenges and issues facing the cooperatives and rural development sectors pertaining to remittance.

As per data provided by the Centre for Micro-finance Nepal (CFN), labourers who go abroad to work and add to the remittance coming to the country — the current deciding factor of Nepal’s GDP — are low skilled, without proper orientation, not proficient in foreign languages and also do not get exposure in the countries that they go to.

According to the report, the Foreign Employment Act is also not being followed. People at the interaction said that while there is no set room for complaint in case of a problem. They also pointed out that in many instances people do not get the money on time from remittance companies and sometimes they don’t get it at all.

As per the CFN report, if the right to remittance is given to cooperatives and rural organizations it will be not only simpler for people in villages but also a guarantee that the money reaches people on time.

According to particpants, money would not only be secure but cooperatives would also act as a savings account where the family or individual gets interest.

NRB directive on profit run

KATHMANDU: The central bank has issued a directive according to which licenced Micro-finance institutions and non-government organisations can now mobilise deposits. But they have to fulfill the pre-requisite of having been consistently in profit for last three years. They will also have to maintain capital adequacy ration according to the central bank directive. Similarly, their non-performing loans (NPL) should not exceed five per cent. They should have at least 500 groups and 2,500 members. The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has recently allowed commercial banks to establish separate MFIs as subsidiary companies with the participation of public. Currently, the commercial banks ( three pre cent), development banks (two pre cent) and finance companies (1.5 pre cent) lend the micro-finance companies under the deprived sector lending facility provisioned by the central bank.