Banking News – An agreement has been signed between Nepal Clearing House Limited (NCHL) and German development agency GIZ to promote digital payments in Nepal’s mobility and public transport sector.

The agreement was signed by Diego Senior, Program Manager of GIZ-SET4NPL, and Nilesh Man Singh Pradhan, Chief Executive Officer of NCHL. Under the collaboration, public transport-related payments will be further digitalized through GIZ’s SET4NPL project using NCHL’s national payment infrastructure.

In this process, preparations are underway to integrate payment methods including NepalPay QR, NepalPay Card, and ConnectIPS with transport ticketing systems, mobility applications, devices, and other digital platforms. According to NCHL, this will make it easier for passengers to pay fares across various public transport services through a single digital payment infrastructure.

Under the collaboration, the “open-loop ticketing” system will also be promoted. This is expected to gradually reduce the compulsion of using separate cards or payment systems for separate transport services. This will help digitalize processes ranging from ticketing, fare collection, transaction processing, and settlement.

NCHL will provide necessary APIs and technical support for integration, testing, and deployment. GIZ-SET4NPL will facilitate connecting NCHL’s payment methods to ticketing systems, applications, and devices developed under the project.

NCHL has taken this collaboration as an important step toward expanding national digital payment infrastructure to public transport and future mobility services. As cash-based fare collection in public transport is gradually moved toward a digital system, it is expected that passenger convenience, transaction transparency, and fare management will also improve.