Latest
Saturday, 10 October 2026
- Companies · Pensions
Nepal's Social Security Fund passes 3m contributors, most of them working abroad
Mandatory enrolment for migrant workers has turned a scheme built for formal employees into a Rs 116bn fund. Most payouts so far have gone on old-age claims.
- Companies · Insurance
Non-life insurers' profits fell 39% before the Bhotekoshi flood brought Rs 25.9bn in claims
Nepal's general insurers ended 2025/26 with sharply lower earnings. Then the August flood produced claims larger than a year's premiums at the most exposed firms.
- Companies · Insurance
Nepal's life insurers pass Rs 200bn in yearly premiums as new business grows by a quarter
Fourteen life insurers collected Rs 200bn in 2025/26, up 12.4%. First-year premiums, the best guide to new customers, grew twice as fast as the total.
- Companies · Interest rates
Fixed-deposit rates in Nepal fall below inflation as savers drift to ordinary accounts
Banks now offer individuals about 4% on fixed deposits while prices rise by nearly 6%. Fixed deposits have shrunk from almost half of commercial bank deposits to about a third.
- Companies · Bank results
Nepal's banks lifted profits by 32% by setting aside less, not by lending more
Commercial banks earned Rs 69.8bn in 2025/26, but core interest income barely moved and bad loans kept rising. The gain came mostly from smaller provisions.
- Press release
Shikhar Shoes brings three decades of experience to a new line for young buyers
The Nepali shoemaker has launched new designs aimed at a younger generation, promising comfort and durability alongside style.
- Policy & Power · Trade
India's EU trade deal nears signature, and Nepal's export edge in Europe shrinks with it
Indian garments, carpets and pashmina are set to enter the EU duty-free from as early as 2027, wiping out the tariff margin that has kept Nepal's small European trade alive.
- Companies · Energy
Nepal clears two hydropower projects and targets 2028 for Arun-3
The Investment Board approved Rs 21.17bn (about $137m) of semi-reservoir schemes and pressed the two 900 MW giants to move, but approvals have rarely been Nepal's problem.
Friday, 9 October 2026
- Opinion
Nepal needs a deeper stock market, and first an honest one
More margin lending and new trading tools will not restore confidence. Enforcement and disclosure will.
- Opinion
A delay in LDC graduation is not a reprieve for Nepali business
Whether Nepal graduates next month or in 2029, its exporters will keep their access to rich markets only by meeting standards most have not yet tried to meet.
- Opinion · Editorial
Nepal cannot keep exporting its young people as its main growth strategy
Remittances now exceed the national budget. That is a measure of failure at home as much as success abroad.
- Policy & Power · Explainer
LDC graduation: what Nepal's exporters stand to lose, and when
Nepal is due to leave the UN's least developed country group on 24 November and has asked to wait until 2029. Here is what changes in Europe, Britain and beyond, for whom, and on what timetable.
- Policy & Power
The electricity VAT has become the test of the government's tax resolve
Business wants the levy scrapped. Two ministries disagree in public about whether it will be. Behind the row lies a budget that needs revenue it is struggling to defend.
- Policy & Power
Nepal approves billions in foreign investment each year, but less than a third has ever arrived
Approvals fell for a second year in 2025/26 while actual inflows more than doubled, yet central bank data covering three decades show that most of the capital Nepal approves never crosses the border.
- Policy & Power · Explainer
Nepal's Rs 2.12 trillion budget explained: the spending record it must beat, and a flood it did not plan for
Nepal's largest budget bets on tax reform and 7% growth, but the state spent less than half its capital allocation last year, and a Rs 559bn flood reconstruction plan now sits on top.
- Markets · Explainer
Why a dollar costs about Rs 155: Nepal's 1.6 peg to the Indian rupee explained
Nepal's currency moves with India's, which has weakened this year, and the arrangement brings stability at the cost of monetary independence.
- Markets
Gold climbs to Rs 295,700 a tola, still below January's record
Bullion is costly again ahead of the festival season, and higher import duty has added to the price Nepalis pay.
- Markets · Regulation
SEBON plans a cautious, phased start to intraday trading
Nepal's regulator wants to let investors buy and sell the same share in one day, but only in liquid stocks and only after margin lending rules are in place.
- Markets
Ten shares and a lottery: why Nepal's IPOs are oversubscribed many times over
Millions of Nepalis apply for every new issue, most leave with nothing, and the system shapes how the whole market behaves.
- Markets · Explainer
How Nepal's stock market works: NEPSE, Meroshare and the 8m-account investor base
A plain-English guide to a small, retail-driven exchange: who can invest, how Meroshare and brokers work, what this year's tax and trading-rule changes mean, and why banks and hydropower dominate.
- Markets
NEPSE ends a nervous week flat as a share-sale notice rule rattles investors
A Friday rally rescued the index, but the regulator's 15-day notice rule for large sellers remains the market's main worry before the Dashain holiday.
- Leaders · Leaders · Profile
Anil Keshary Shah: the banker who keeps coming back to Nabil
A career chief executive whose 2018 return to Nabil was held up by a new central-bank rule, and who then joined the party that went on to win Nepal's 2026 election, is back on the board of one of the country's largest banks.
- Leaders · Leaders · Investigation
Ajeya Sumargi's offshore funds return to Nepal's Supreme Court, eight years on
Investigators reopened an inquiry into money routed to his telecoms and cement companies, then the Supreme Court granted him interim protection. No charge has been filed in any of the inquiries.
- Leaders · Leaders · Media
Kailash Sirohiya's Kantipur survived an arrest and a fire. Its business model is the harder test
Nepal's largest media house came through its chairman's 2024 arrest, which ended without charge, and an arson attack. Revenue down about 70% in a decade and its heir's exit over the newsroom's journalism are harder problems.
- Leaders · Leaders · Profile
Rajendra Khetan sold the beer and bought the payments rails
After an arbitration with Carlsberg set a $744m price on his family's stake, the chairman of one of Nepal's oldest business houses is buying into Laxmi Sunrise Bank and Fonepay, the switch behind most of the country's QR payments.
- Leaders · Leaders · Legacy
Ang Tshering Sherpa built the Yeti group from a trekking kitchen. His heirs inherited its hardest tests
Seven years after the Yeti founder died in a helicopter crash, the group he built has lost control of its airline to an insurer, is preparing a share offering and faces a court case over state land in Kathmandu.
- Rise & Fall
Prabhu Group's Devi Prakash Bhattachan: from remittances to a bank, and a fraud case still before the court
The chairman who built a money-transfer business into a commercial bank and a life insurer faces a fraud case over unpaid remittance agents, which he denies. Nearly a year after it was filed, no verdict has been reported.
- Companies · Energy
Nepal's electric car boom meets a new tax regime
Electric cars dominate new sales in a country that imports all its fuel. A value-based levy introduced in May may decide whether that lasts.
- Economy · Trade
Nepal's Rs 1.78trn trade gap and the narrow road to China
Nepal buys more than six rupees of goods for every one it sells. The August flood has shown how fragile its alternative to India is.
- Economy · Infrastructure
Nepal's two new international airports are still waiting for international flights
Pokhara has its first daily foreign service, nearly four years after opening. Bhairahawa has had none since March. Both have bills to pay.
