Introduction

Nepal Clearing House Ltd. (NCHL) is a public limited company established on 23rd  December, 2008 (8 Poush 2065) under the leadership and guidance of Nepal Rastra Bank (The Central Bank of Nepal). It has equity participation from Nepal Rastra Bank, commercial banks, development banks and finance companies. NCHL recognizes banking & financial technology-oriented services as one of the key ingredients for the Banks and Financial Institutions (BFIs) to improve their efficiency, and productivity and also provide innovative financial solutions to their customers. And NCHL intends to help them realize these by providing various technology-based payment-related services without having to invest heavily into infrastructures by the BFIs.

NCHL as per its strategic objectives to establish multiple payments, clearing and settlement systems in Nepal is currently operating Electronic Cheque Clearing (NCHL-ECC), Interbank Payment System (NCHL-IPS), Retail Payment Switch (RPS), connectIPS, CORPORATEPAY, connectRTGS and National Payment Interface (NPI).

With the mandate and approval from Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), NCHL is currently implementing the NPS project. The first phase of the project, the Retail Payment Switch (RPS) has already been rolled out which enables non-card-based transaction interoperability for routing and settlement of transactions along with the establishment of NEPALPAY QR scheme. Whereas the second phase of NPS which is still in under implementation phase shall implement interoperability of card-based transactions through the rollout of the Interoperable Card Switch and Domestic Card Scheme for Nepal.

BFIs are enrolled in NCHL systems as participating members and are responsible for their payment transactions and clearing operations. Non-bank institutions are enrolled as Indirect or Technical members for initiating their payment transactions through their respective banks from various underlying payment systems of NCHL.

To be a leading provider of electronic payment and settlement services