Banking
Banks, mergers and the central bank.
Nepal GDP grew 4% in Q4 2025/26, but Bhote Koshi floods cloud 2026/27
Electricity led growth in the last quarter of 2025/26. The Bhote Koshi floods have since disrupted power output, a border crossing and the state's budget.
Gyanendra Dhungana, the banker who ran Nabil and chased the governorship
He rebuilt Nepal Bangladesh Bank, led the bank lobby, then took charge of Nabil after the merger. In 2025 he gave it up to seek the central bank's top job. Now he sits on boards in Colombo and Kathmandu.
Buddha Air's Birendra Bahadur Basnet bets on rice despite a Rs 25m mill loss
The Buddha Air chairman believes machines, bank credit and a mill's guaranteed purchase can make the economics of a two-bigha farm work. As of October 2026, the experiment had lost money.
Why a Kathmandu-Dhangadhi flight costs more than a flight to Delhi
State-set fare limits, expensive jet fuel and a five-month earning season sit behind a fare gap that has reached Nepal's parliament, according to The Kathmandu Post.
SEBON puts NEPSE overhaul and margin lending at top of reform agenda
Nepal's securities regulator promises margin lending within the Nepali month of Asoj 2083 and new trading instruments before fiscal year 2083/84 ends, while pressing single-owner brokerages to merge or corporatise.
NEPSE inches up 0.18% as SEBON cuts promoter share-sale notice to five trading days
Turnover fell 18% in the week to 9 October, and only banks gained ground. Now founding shareholders can sell up to 15% of their stakes without warning. Here is what that means for promoters and retail investors.
Nepal Bangladesh Bank: the run, the NRB takeover and the Nabil merger
A 1994 joint venture with two Bangladeshi lenders suffered a run in November 2006, was taken over by Nepal Rastra Bank, recovered under its management and was absorbed by Nabil Bank in 2022.
Rasuwa flood reconstruction: Nepal should borrow long, not short
The flood's bill is close to a tenth of the economy. How Nepal pays for it matters as much as what it builds.
Rs 122.8bn of share, bond and fund issues wait at SEBON, some since 2023
Nepal's securities regulator holds 153 applications to sell shares, bonds and fund units. Steel and cement makers want premium prices, and a bank with thinning capital wants Rs 7.46bn from its shareholders.
Nabil's shareholders approve a 15.8% dividend as bank payouts range from 2% to 20%
Bank boards have proposed their dividends for 2082/83. The spread is wide, and for the first time several must also pay holders of their new preference shares.
Nepal's revenue rises 16% but trails target as the flood squeezes northern trade
The government collected Rs 184.58bn in the first two months of 2026/27, against a target of Rs 214.81bn. Last year it met 83.5% of its revenue goal; this year's is Rs 1.58 trillion.
Nepal's inflation nears 6%, and the figures predate the flood
Consumer prices rose 5.96% in the year to mid-August, more than triple the rate a year earlier. Cooking oil, fruit and transport led, and wholesale prices rose faster still.
World Bank and ADB cut Nepal's growth forecasts as the Rasuwa flood hits industry
The World Bank now expects growth of 3.7% this fiscal year and the ADB 4.1%. Both say reconstruction will lift output later, at the cost of higher prices and a wider deficit.
Nepal's central bank lets banks merge branches, but not dismiss the staff who run them
New rules allow banks to consolidate urban branches if they open rural ones, give customers 90 days' notice and transfer, not lay off, employees.
Nepal has 30m mobile banking users but only about 335,000 credit cards
Credit card lending grew 29% last year to Rs 8bn, yet remains a sliver of bank loans. A virtual card that works on QR codes is growing faster than plastic ever did.
Nepal's ATMs and card machines lose ground as QR payments reach 72m a month
Central bank data show QR payments up 77% in a year while ATM withdrawals, debit card use and card-terminal payments all fell. The country now has fewer cash machines than a year ago.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Why Nepal's factories run at less than half their capacity
Cement kilns idle, steel mills lose their Indian market and new factory registrations fall. Manufacturing now makes up less than 6% of the economy.
Kathmandu's property market wakes up, helped by a rush to beat the taxman
Land registration revenue hit a three-year high as buyers raced a capital gains tax increase, and the central bank has loosened home-loan limits.
One year after the uprising, insurers have paid less than two-fifths of claims
The September 2025 protests cost the private sector Rs 33.5bn (about $216m) by official count. Businesses are still waiting for most of the money.
Nepal's startups grow up under a thicket of new rules
A change at the top of eSewa, fare caps for ride-hailing apps and a troubled state loan scheme show how the state is catching up with the digital economy.
Still on the grey list: what FATF scrutiny means for Nepal's banks and remitters
Assessors say Nepal's bank supervision passes muster; cooperatives, casinos, property and the failure to confiscate criminal assets do not. Here is what the grey list costs, and what would end it.
Indian visitors pay by phone in Nepal; Nepalis in India still cannot
QR codes have become Nepal's most-used digital payment, and Indian tourists are using them everywhere from temples to tills, but the reverse link remains unfinished.
Governor Poudel bets on cheap money to deliver 7% growth
Nepal's central bank chief, an academic economist, has kept policy loose and asked banks to lend Rs 652bn (about $4.2bn); the borrowers have yet to appear.
Microfinance bad loans pass 10% as a lending model built for the poor strains
Defaults at Nepal's microlenders have jumped, tens of thousands of borrowers are blacklisted, and informal moneylenders charging 'meter byaj', interest that compounds against the borrower, remain the alternative.
How Nepal's savings cooperatives became shadow banks, and who is being paid back
Cooperatives took deposits like banks but were overseen like clubs; the 23 the federal government has declared troubled owe Rs 46bn to some 76,000 savers, and refunds that began in May cover a small fraction.
How Nepal went from 30 commercial banks to 20, and why the shrinking has stalled
A capital rule written in 2015 forced a decade of mergers; the banks that came out of it are bigger, but not all of them are healthier.
The Rasuwa flood that switched off a tenth of Nepal's power
A surge from Tibet wrecked hydropower plants, cut the main China trade route and cost Nepal a growth forecast.
Nepal's banks have record deposits and the cheapest loans in years, but borrowers are holding back
Lending rates have roughly halved since 2023 and deposits are growing twice as fast as credit. The central bank is betting on 11% loan growth as the World Bank cuts its forecast after the Rasuwa flood.
Nepal's workers sent home more in one month than the state invested in a year
Remittances reached Rs 2.36 trillion ($16.19bn) in 2025/26, more than the national budget, while capital spending fell below half its target and private credit stayed weak.
Binod Chaudhary, Nepal's only billionaire, a year after the fire
The uprising burned his home and the election that followed took his seat, yet Forbes still values Nepal's only billionaire at $2.1bn and the new prime minister has invited him to talk investment.
Upendra Mahato's road from Siraha to Moscow and back
He turned $600 into a business spanning Russian electronics, Belarusian machinery and Nepal's first private mobile network, then founded the diaspora association whose split and reunion he has watched from its edge.
How Chandra Dhakal built a bank on the money Nepalis send home
In 2001 most of Nepal's remittances moved through informal hundi brokers. The IME founder bet that migrant workers would trust a licensed company instead, and turned that bet into the country's largest bank.
Nepal halved its tax on share profits months after raising it, and the harder reforms are still ahead
A 21-point plan to revive NEPSE has cut capital gains tax to 3.75% and 5%. Margin trading, a new index and access for Nepalis abroad depend on deadlines that start this month.
Remittance money meets inflation as Nepal shops for Dashain
Record transfers from abroad should make this the biggest festival season yet. Prices, a closed China border and nervous shoppers are getting in the way.