July 11: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has adopted a strict policy for appointing directors of payment service provider companies.

The central bank revised the Permission for Payment Service Provider Policy 2079 in this regard. As per the new provision, a person cannot hold the position of director of two separate companies in the financial sector at the same time.

“When the same person is the director of two companies in the financial sector, there is a conflict of interest, so NRB changed the policy and made it stricter,” said an official of NRB.

This step was taken after the directors of banks and financial institutions (BFIs) started operating payment service companies.

The policy stipulates that a person who is a director or officer of a licensed bank, financial institution, money changer, remittance company, payment service provider, payment system operator cannot hold any position in any other payment related organization at the same time.

However, in the case of the investment of the payment-related organization, the employees on behalf of the investor organization are to be represented in the board of directors of the organization in which the investment is made.

By mid-May 2023, 10 payment system operators and 27 payment service providers have received permission from NRB. By this period, there are 18.2 million wallet users. From mid-April to mid-May, transactions worth Rs 19.25 billion were made through digital wallets.

From utility bill payments to purchasing goods, the use of mobile wallets is increasing in recent times.