Nepal Telecom (NT) has received a letter of intent (LOI) from Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) to set off a mobile money service. The service will function in a collaboration between Nepal Telecom and Rashtriya Banijya Bank (RBB).
The two governmental organizations, Nepal Telecom and Rashtriya Banijya Bank sought a letter of intent from Nepal Rastra Bank a year ago to work jointly on this service. A year later, Nepal Telecom and Banijya Bank are now able to assemble the necessary infrastructure. They have also set up a joint venture company to carry out mobile money service as a payment service provider.
Earlier NTA approved the directives for mobile money which paved the way for the telcos to operate such digital payment solutions from their mobile balance.
Letter of Intent policy
As per the policy of LOI, the infrastructure needs to set up within the next six months of receiving the LOI. After this, they need to send an application for final permission. Otherwise, the Letter of Intent may get dropped. Within 30 days of the application, NRB will conduct on-site monitoring of company registration, office, staff, software, network, and other necessary arrangements.
If deemed appropriate during the investigation, Nepal Rastra Bank will issue a license to operate the mobile money service to a joint venture company within the next eight months.
It was in 2017 that Ntc initially conceived the idea of mobile money service to facilitate people for prompt cashless payments. But the mobile money service is yet to take a good shape to be actually implemented. We still except the best effort from the two governmental companies to achieve a breakthrough for the mobile financial service.
Mobile money service
With the final approval, Nepal Telecom’s mobile subscribers will be able to use their mobile balance as a wallet. It means you can link your phone balance to use it as a wallet fund of the same mobile phone number. You do not need to load the balance to any wallet, in contrast to the digital wallets.
There are several benefits of mobile money service in a digital transaction. Mobile money service enables us to use the phone money to store, send, and receive funds in a digital platform using mobile phone balance. The process of using mobile money service is simple, quick, and secure. You can purchase goods and services online, pay bills, and withdraw cash.
Nepal Telecom and Rashtriya Banijya Bank (RBB) are jointly starting the mobile money service with an investment of NRs 1 billion. Now that they have received the LOI from Nepal Rastra Bank, and the service will kick-off within six months. The service allows NTC SIM users to use phone money as a wallet fund.
How eager are you to experience this service of Nepal Telecom? Do share your views with us in the comment section below.
