NCHL Organizes Interaction Program with EFT Card Member BFIs

[25^th Sep 2026]

Kathmandu- NCHL has organized an interaction program with its EFT Card Services member banks and financial institutions (BFIs), bringing together representatives from 22 member BFIs and senior NCHL officials to strengthen the relationship, update on operational requirements, new initiatives and collate feedbacks on its EFT services and products.

The interaction program provided a platform for the member BFIs and NCHL to exchange views, feedback and insights on customer expectations, technology developments and operational requirements. The interaction focused on strengthening the security, operational matters, innovations in card payments.

The program also marked the expansion of the EFT Card service membership, with 2 new commercial banks and 5 new finance companies onboarded as the EFT Card Switch members. With this addition, 17 BFIs are not within the network of NCHL’s EFT Card Switch, while 6 BFIs are members of its E-commerce payment gateway service and 14 BFIs are using its 3D Secure ACS services.

EFT Card services of NCHL is the centralized switching solution offered to the BFIs for processing of card transactions including card issuance and acquiring of various national and international card schemes. Currently, the issuance is done for Visa and NEPALPAY cards whereas the acquiring is done for 8 major national and international networks including Visa, Mastercard, Union Pay, Diners Club, Discover, Pulse, RUPAY and NEPALPAY.

In FY 2082/83, Nepal’s card market recorded approximately 129 million transactions, with transaction value of NPR 1,019 billion and 14.33 million cards in circulation. NCHL EFT accounted for approximately 32 million transactions, with NPR 255 billion in transaction value and 3.44 million cards in circulation, representing 25% of market share. Its 3D Secure ACS, a secure authentication of online card transactions and an E-commerce payment gateway, enables online merchants to accept card payments through participating BFIs. The service currently has 6 member BFIs who have acquired over 115 merchants.

As part of its broader vision to strengthen Nepal’s domestic payment infrastructure and promote greater use, NCHL has introduced NEPALPAY Card scheme as the national card scheme which is part of the National Payment Switch (NPS). The EFT Card Switch has been integrated with NPS and upgraded to support both the issuance and acceptance of NEPALPAY Cards, enabling participating BFIs to leverage their existing infrastructure for issuance and acquiring.

NCHL will continue collaborating with BFIs, ecosystem partners and international networks to expand card payment capabilities, strengthen interoperability and promote secure and innovative payment solutions.