“A request in this regard has already been forwarded to Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank,” Neelesh Man Singh Pradhan, CEO of the NCHL, told Republica, expressing hope that the company´s “proposal will not be rejected”.[break]
When asked about the central bank´s opinion on the NCHL´s proposal, Bhaskar Mani Gyawali, spokesperson of NRB, said the central bank has no intention of creating roadblocks in the way of the NCHL and will allow it to launch the service on the day it has selected.
The NHCL, which came into operation in December 2008, had earlier set mid-Nov as the date for the launch of the automated check clearing system. But it had later put the idea in the backburner for some time due to lack of coordination among some banks and financial institutions.
“Now most of the confusions have been settled and we are all set to go live,” Pradhan said.
Once the system is introduced, a person who has an account in, say, Bank ´A´ but has received payment through check issued by, say, Bank ´B´, can have the amount deposited in Bank ´A´ within two to five and half hours, without going to Bank ´B´.
Currently, this process of clearing checks takes up to two days. This is because the banks and financial institutions handle checks physically, meaning they take them to the central bank before payments are settled.
But once the electronic system is introduced, banks will only scan the check and send the image along with other check details to the NCHL, which is then forwarded to Nepal Rastra Bank.
“Currently, this system will work only in Kathmandu valley,” Pradhan said. “But within three to six months we are planning to introduce this service outside of the valley as well, which will bring down time of settling payment through checks issued by banks located anywhere in the country to two to five and half hours from up to three weeks at present.”
But the service won´t come for free. The NCHL will slap Rs 5 on clearance of each check between Rs 501 to Rs 5,000. A sum of Rs 10 will be charged on clearance of checks more than Rs 5,000. But checks of up to Rs 500 will be cleared for free.
The NCHL is owned jointly by 23 commercial banks, two development banks, Nepal Rastra Bank and Smart Choice Technologies.
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