Banks in Nepal

Nepal Rastra Bank is Nepal’s central bank, banking supervisor and payment-system authority. It also operates the Real Time Gross Settlement system for high-value and critical payments. NRB’s mid-July 2026 list recorded 20 Class A commercial banks, 17 Class B development banks, 16 Class C finance companies and 51 Class D microfinance financial institutions. Nepal Infrastructure Bank Ltd. is listed separately as an infrastructure development bank. Institutions can have national, provincial or district working areas, and several names on the list reflect mergers. People access banking services through branches, ATMs, branchless banking centres, agents, mobile banking and internet banking. Nepal had 11,332 bank and financial-institution branches in the 2025/26 annual data, 816 branchless banking centres in mid-July 2025 and 4,878 commercial-bank ATMs at the same date. Local branch and ATM coverage should be checked before choosing an account, especially where an institution has a limited working area. Banks and other financial institutions offer savings, current, call or notice accounts, fixed or term deposits and, under foreign-exchange rules, some foreign-currency accounts. Customer due diligence can require identity, address and purpose information. Required documents, activation steps, minimum balances and service channels vary by institution. Nepali citizens and residents, and foreign nationals, can face different requirements. A foreign national may be able to open a convertible foreign-currency account, but NRB guidance limits operation of that account to the period covered by the person’s visa. Current KYC requirements and tariffs should be checked with the selected institution. The Deposit and Credit Guarantee Fund provides national deposit protection for eligible member institutions. The maximum protection is NPR 500,000 per natural person per member institution, with savings and fixed deposits combined. The limit applies to the person’s total covered deposits at that institution, not separately to each account. Commercial banks, development banks, finance companies and microfinance institutions should be checked for current membership and coverage conditions. Payments can use cash, cheques and electronic clearing, IPS or IBFT transfers, connectIPS through Nepal Clearing House, RTGS, point-of-sale terminals, NepalQR and other QR services, mobile banking, internet banking and wallets. QR payments were the most-used retail payment instrument in 2024/25. Nepal’s payment infrastructure is becoming more interoperable, and an authorized UPI connection through Nepal’s National Payment Interface supports certain cross-border person-to-person payments. Payment service operators include Nepal Clearing House Ltd. and Fonepay Payment Service Ltd.; payment service providers include IME Khalti Ltd., Esewa Ltd. and Nepal Digital Payments Company Ltd. An e-wallet is not the same as a bank deposit, so the provider’s NRB licence and the applicable protection rules should be checked separately. Banks and payment providers issue debit, credit and prepaid cards for ATM, point-of-sale and, where offered, virtual use. NRB cash-withdrawal limits are NPR 20,000 per debit-card transaction, NPR 50,000 per day and NPR 300,000 per month. Prepaid-card limits are NPR 10,000 per transaction, NPR 20,000 per day and NPR 200,000 per month. Credit-card cash withdrawal is limited to 10% of the approved credit limit. The issuer can apply additional product, foreign-exchange or overseas-use limits. A shop, market or hotel should not add a separate customer fee for a point-of-sale or QR purchase under the stated consumer protection rules. Customers who forget mobile-banking, internet-banking or wallet credentials can use the provider’s self-retrieval process without a fee where that service is available. A failed debit should be resolved by the same institution by T+1; an interbank domestic transaction can take up to T+3 under force settlement rules. Account maintenance, other-bank ATM use, cards, SMS alerts, wallets, foreign exchange, remittances, transfers, account opening and card delivery can still carry provider- or product-specific costs. Protect the OTP, PIN, password, CVV and identity information used for banking. Two-factor authentication combines a password or PIN with an OTP, fingerprint or face recognition. Avoid insecure public Wi-Fi and untrusted VPN connections, and be cautious with fake accounts and fraudulent QR codes. Block a lost card or mobile device immediately. Keep the transaction receipt, time, reference number and screenshots when reporting a problem. The first complaint goes to the bank or payment provider; unresolved cases can be submitted to the NRB Gunaso Portal, the Financial Consumer Protection Unit or gunaso@nrb.org.np.