Agreement to deploy Unified Payments Interface in Nepal

KATHMANDU FEBRUARY 18 : NPCI International Payments Limited (NIPL), the International arm of National Payments Corporation of India, has joined hands with two IT- based companies herein the country- Gateway Payments Service Pvt Ltd. and Manam Infotech Pvt Ltd. to deploy Unified Payments Interface(UPI) in Nepal.  

The newly forged partnership aims to deploy the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in Nepal for the larger Digital Public Good and bolster interoperable real-time Person to person (P2P) and Merchant payment transactions (P2M) in Nepal.

“Nepal now shall be the first country outside of India to adopt the UPI as the payment platform. It could well drive the digitalization of cash transactions as envisioned by the Nepal Rastra Bank,” claims a press release issued jointly by the said three companies.

This collaboration is also expected to enable the last-mile consumers in Nepal to reap the benefits of an open interoperable payments system driving immediate payment transfers between bank accounts and merchant payments in real-time.

 “The UPI service has created a significant positive impact in India in terms of the country’s digital payment transformation. We expect that the same in Nepal would play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the country and dreams of building a less-cash society,” the release quoted Rajesh Prasad Manandhar, CEO of GPS, as saying.

Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL, reportedly said, “We are delighted to join hands with GPS and Manam Infotech to facilitate the deployment of NPCI’s flagship Unified Payments Interface in Nepal. At NIPL, we are committed to transforming payments by taking our robust payments solutions to global markets and collaborating with local payment system operators.

Similarly, Naga Babu Ramineni, Director of Manam, was quoted to have said,  “Manam has always been part of major digital transformation across the various regions of the world. In this light,  we believe this partnership will eliminate all the barriers of payment transformation within Nepal and across the border thereby transforming the regional economy."

Over the next few months, all three companies will work closely together to deploy Unified Payments Interface in Nepal along with all the functionalities and features presently available in India.