March 2: Nepal Rastra Bank is making arrangements to avail loans for bank customers from mobile wallets. The central bank decided to provide loan facilities through mobile wallets due to its growing popularity among the people. 

The monetary policy of NRB for the current fiscal year mentions that necessary study will be conducted to make arrangement of loan flow from mobile wallets. NRB has stated that it will issue instructions in this regard after the study gets completed. 

"As per the announcement made in the monetary policy, we will conduct necessary studies in this regard," said Guru Prasad Poudel, executive director of the payments system department of NRB,adding, "Only then we will issue instructions to provide this feature to the wallet users." 

Until now, facilities such as mobile top-up, and online payment of bills including telephone internet, drinking water, and other utility bills are available from digital wallets. 

In mid-February, the central bank had made arrangements for banks and financial institutions to obtain loans up to Rs 500,000 through electronic means. According to the digital lending guidelines 2078, banks and financial institutions can provide loans up to a maximum of Rs 500,000 to the customers with salary or business accounts and up to Rs 200,000 for other account holders. 

The banks can also disburse such loans by appointing representatives to the wallet service providers. They will be able to facilitate everything from loan application to recovery. 

Poudel said that as the wallet companies have just opened and they do not have adequate infrastructure and capacity, for the time being, only banks and financial institutions will be allowed to give loans digitally. 

"At present, wallet companies can act as agents of bank loans," he said. "Once the companies are able, we will authorize them to give small loans." 

According to NRB, there are currently 27 payment service providers operating in the country. Wallet companies have 17.71 million users. As of mid-January, transactions worth Rs 16.27 billion have been done through wallets. Currently, there is an arrangement for transactions up to Rs 1 million from wallets on a monthly basis.