Nepal Telecom Applies to NRB For Mobile Money License

Nepal Digital Payment Company, a subsidiary company of Nepal Telecom has sent an application to Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) requesting a license to operate a mobile money service. The company seems to have set up all the necessary infrastructure to operate the digital payment service using a mobile number. After receiving the license, Nepal Telecom will officially start providing mobile money services in Nepal, from Nepal Digital Payment Company.

Licensing process 

NTA approved the directives for mobile money nearly a year ago. With which, Nepal Telecom received a Letter of Intent (LOI) from Nepal Rastra Bank six months ago. According to the conditions of LOI, the company needed to establish company infrastructure, hardware, and software for operating mobile money service within six months of receiving LOI. As a result, after six months of preparations, Nepal Digital Payment Company has applied to acquire the license for digital payment using mobile money.

Kantipur reports quoting Nepal Telecom MD Mr. Dilli Adhikari of the submission of the license application to NRB on January 10. He also notified that the process of developing technical infrastructure, software, and legal infrastructure is complete.

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) will now monitor the overall system of the company and grant approval. That suggests that Nepal Telecom’s Mobile Money Service could operate in the month of Falgun, 2077 as it could take some time for NRB monitoring and authorization. Nepal Digital Payment Company is a joint venture of Nepal Telecom and Rashtriya Banijya Bank (RBB), created with an authorized capital of NRs. 1 billion. 

Till now, there are many digital payment service providers in Nepal, find the Top Digital Payment Wallets in Nepal. With the award of license and the operation of the mobile money service, Nepal Digital Payment Company could be the leader in the digital payment sector of Nepal, if everything goes as per the plan.

The mobile money service comes with various interesting features, like having a wallet linked to your mobile number itself.

How do they manage the balance in the Mobile money service?

As known, they will keep two separate wallets or account for your mobile number. One for the regular mobile balance (main balance) and another is for the wallet to use for digital payment. According to the source, the taxable amounts like VAT, telecommunication service charge, mobile ownership fee adds to the main balance. So, the main balance will not merge with the wallet fund to avoid tax addition in the wallet fund.

For now, you will have an option to load mobile money via the recharge card. We can choose either to keep the recharging amount in the wallet or in the main balance during recharging.

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Another feature is that the service does not require a bank account linked to it to perform transactions. Most of the digital payment platforms require a bank account linked to them. But to use digital payment from mobile money service, the user does not even need a bank account. The user can use the recharge card to recharge the phone balance as well as the wallet fund. Then, the mobile balance can be used to purchase goods and services, pay bills, purchase data, and so on. 

What are your thoughts on mobile money services by Nepal Digital Payment Company (A subsidiary of Nepal Telecom in partnership with Rastriye Banijye Bank)? Please write it down in the comment section below.