Bank Deposits and Loans Concentrated in Bagmati Province: NRB Report

Bagamati Province holds the largest share of total deposits and loans among Nepal’s banking and financial institutions, according to the Annual Economic Activity Study Report for Fiscal Year 2024/25 published by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on Thursday.

The report shows that as of mid-July 2025, Bagamati Province accounted for 65.8% of total deposits and 59.5% of total loans disbursed by banks and financial institutions.

During FY 2024/25, banks and financial institutions collected deposits worth Rs 7,296 billion, of which Rs 4,798 billion originated from Bagamati Province. Other provinces contributed as follows: Koshi Rs 553.03 billion, Madhesh Rs 407.737 billion, Gandaki Rs 612.295 billion, Karnali Rs 9.09 billion, and Sudurpashchim Rs 173.83 billion.

Similarly, total loans disbursed amounted to Rs 5,586 billion, with Bagamati Province alone receiving Rs 3,323 billion. The disbursement in other provinces included Rs 613.389 billion in Koshi, Rs 495.86 billion in Madhesh, Rs 356.925 billion Gandaki, Rs 577.276 billion in Lumbini, Rs 62.12 billion in Karnali, and Rs 157.404 billion in Sudurpashchim.

The report also highlighted a slight decline in agricultural loans, which decreased by 0.04% from the previous year to Rs 336.73 billion. Loans for livestock and slaughterhouse were the largest agricultural loans at Rs 6.119 billion, while loans related to tobacco were the smallest at Rs 206.5 million. In terms of provincial share of agricultural loans, Bagamati accounted for 36.2%, Madhesh 18.7%, Koshi 16.7%, Lumbini 15%, Gandaki 7.1%, Sudurpashchim 4.7%, and Karnali 1.5%.

In the industrial sector, loans worth Rs 1,699 billion were disbursed, accounting for 30.42% of total loans. The largest share went to non-food manufacturing industries (35.27%), followed by electricity, gas, and water industries (26.26%), agro, forest, and beverage industries (21.85%), construction (11.7%), metal products, machinery, and electronics (4.23%), and mining (0.69%). Bagamati Province received the highest industrial loans at Rs 1,280 billion, representing 71.3% of industrial loans, followed by Koshi (9.5%) and Lumbini (8.3%).

In the service sector, total loans disbursed amounted to Rs 2,184 billion, representing 39.1% of total loans. Within this sector, wholesale and retail trade received the largest share at 47.3%, followed by real estate (12.2%), tourism (11.8%), finance, insurance, and property (11.3%), education (6.6%), transport, storage, and communication (3.7%), other services (3.7%), and health and social work (3.3%). Bagamati Province accounted for 59.5% of service sector loans, with Lumbini at 10.3%, Koshi 10.1%, Madhesh 9%, Gandaki 6.9%, Karnali 1.1%, and Sudurpashchim 3%. -- RSS