"To keep the economy running, the morale of the society should be raised"

Although some groups have started a campaign saying that banks and financial institutions should not pay microfinance loans, the regulatory body Rashtra Bank and umbrella organizations of banks and financial institutions have also raised their voices in defense of financial institutions. In this context, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NIC Asia Bank Roshan Kumar Neupane with Yagya Banjade of Kantipur, focusing on the situation of Nepal's financial system, measures and suggestions to make the lax economy viable and policy reforms. break Sajna Baral Edited part of the conversation: At present there is enough liquidity in all banks, the interest rate is also decreasing, but credit has not been expanded, even though 3 trillion 77 billion deposits have been collected by January, only 192 billion rupees The loan has been provided, how did this situation happen? The biggest problem in the economy right now is falling morale. There is an understanding among consumers, entrepreneurs and common people that Nepal's economy is in a state of collapse, economic recession is rampant, worse days are coming, now is not the time to spend and invest. This has disrupted the supply and demand chain, which has an impact on the economy as a whole. The negative commentary we have about the country's economic situation has slowed down the consumer market first. Sales have decreased. In this case, there was no development of enterprise business. The government will get revenue and common people will get employment from the enterprise sector. It will make the economy run. However, due to the lack of positive consumer perception regarding the country's economic situation, the supply and demand cycle has been disturbed.

On the other hand, entrepreneurs have recently been discouraged by the state apparatus. From levying ghost tax on profits of FPOs or mergers and acquisitions, various clampdowns on industrialists have dampened morale. It is not possible to be sure that the government plays the role of supporter and protector for industry and business. A bit more aggressive, idealistic and irresponsible thinking seems to prevail in the society as a whole. Anarchy is gaining momentum now. Even honest people are forced to speak negatively to be heard and liked. After the spread of negative feelings, young people have started going abroad without seeing a future in Nepal. Last year, the youth took a total of 1 billion rupees out of the country just for reading. Overall, our failure to communicate hope has demoralized consumers, entrepreneurs, new generations, and society as a whole. It has not allowed the economy to run. That is why banks and financial institutions are not providing enough loans.

There is a slowdown in the economy, there is no doubt that the government must make a big effort to rise from this situation, but banks also have a role in that process, right? Banks do not play a significant role in increasing the demand for

loans. The client had to come with a project. The bank itself cannot open that project. An entrepreneur must have confidence to set up a project. And he should see the potential. As long as the confidence of the general consumers and industrialists cannot be increased, there is no possibility of increasing credit demand.

But in the past, banks provided more loans to non-productive sectors, especially real estate and stock market, now it is said that the impact has been seen after the regulatory body Rastra Bank has tightened it. I am not saying that

banks are not weak. The weakness of the overall problem banks seems to play only a 10 percent role. Banks have no role to play in the deterioration of consumer and entrepreneur morale and negative outlook for the overall economy. Banks will invest in promising areas. The National Bank has made it mandatory for banks to invest 40 percent in credit oriented areas and 5 percent in underprivileged areas. Thus, a total of 45 percent should be invested in those areas. So it is not true that banks invested more in real estate or stock market. Currently, the total margin lending loan of all commercial banks is worth 66 billion. A, B, C all categories of institutions have an investment of about 84 billion rupees. 84 billion is only 1.6 percent of the total debt of 51 billion rupees. Apart from home loans, banks' investment in real estate sector is 4.7 percent of the total loan investment. You have to give a loan to build or buy a house. Because banks are not only needed for industrialization, banks are also needed to address the issues of people's livelihood. Therefore, including home loans, they have provided loans equal to about 12 percent of the total loan investment in real estate. The answer is that consumer demand has not increased in the real sector and we have been strict in real estate and shares as well. However, now interest rates are falling and the economy seems to be trying to catch some sort of rhythm.

He said that the economy is trying to catch up, does this mean that the demand for loans from the real sector has started to increase, even if it is small?

is just a 20/21 situation now. But none of the indicators have shown encouraging signs of credit expansion. Sales volume of goods and services of entrepreneurs has not increased, consumption has not increased. Revenue collection figures are not expected. In the meantime, the government has announced to reduce the size of the budget by 2 trillion 21 billion. Looking at all these indices, it does not seem that the credit expansion has started to move towards improvement. Now the deposit interest rate is decreasing, the base rate has decreased and correspondingly the loan rates have also decreased. Compared to the previous year, the loan interest rate has decreased by about one and a half percentage points. In the current situation, there is no immediate improvement in the demand for loans. For reforms, the government should increase spending and increase economic activity. The confidence of the private sector should be increased, it can be said that the economy is on the road to improvement only after the relaxation seen in the economy is removed and the demand for credit increases and investment expands.

Now let's talk about NIC Asia Bank, recently there were various discussions about NIC Bank on social media, what is the reality of the rumors about the bank?

AIC Asia Bank has done banking based on the common people at the lower level of the society. Our customer base is the highest among banks at 4.5 million. We have the largest banking network. We have reached all over the country. We are really focusing on retail and small and medium entrepreneurs both in terms of deposit collection and credit extension. We have about 1 lakh loan customers and about 45 lakh deposit customers. This confirms that we are running on multiple clients and a highly dispersed background. Now, our number of depositors and borrowers is double that of the average number of customers of commercial banks. We are reaching far and wide to provide banking services to grassroots and first-time bank account openers. 72 percent of our branches are in areas other than metropolitan and sub-metropolitan cities. One-third of the country's 1.6 million population between the ages of 20 and 49 are connected to our bank. About 99 percent of our total loan customers have taken loans of less than ₹3 crore. Thus, we are proud to have done meaningful banking focusing on the economic upliftment of the relatively remote and marginalized sections. Because unless we can deliver the real benefits of banking services to such target groups, our national goal of poverty reduction and equitable economic development cannot be achieved. In this way, we have become every people's bank.

The elements that do not want stability and peace have spread rumors against us, knowing that targeting a bank with such a large customer base can simultaneously mislead and mislead a large population. Some media were also widely used in this. But happily, all the efforts turned out to be futile. There was no significant negative impact on the bank. Our services are still operating. This time I considered it a natural result of the immense public trust that this bank has earned. Despite such efforts to spread misinformation and rumours, on a large and organized scale, there was no problem in the confidence of our depositors, which I highly commend. For this I am grateful to the common depositors, shareholders, regulatory bodies and employees. The bank's bad loans are among the lowest and the bank is taking the necessary steps to recover the loans on time to protect the interests of the depositors, so the trust of the general public has not decreased even a little.

But there is a rumor that the deposit of NIC has decreased in January compared to the month of May, has there been any fluctuation in deposit collection?

In the first quarter, we increased deposits by 50 billion and in the 6 months of the current fiscal year, we increased deposits by 67 billion. In the overall banking sector, deposits increased by 6 percent during the six months of the current financial year, while in NIC Asia, we increased deposits by about 21 percent. At that time, interest rates had not started falling at such a high rate. We collected deposits thinking that there would be a demand for loans. But as the loan demand was not as expected, that deposit became expensive for us. To reduce deposits, we have started issuing notices from November about providing loans at the lowest interest rates. It is as per our plan to reduce deposits. However, even then our liquidity ratio was more than 20 percent. That is, we had enough savings. Recently, there have been statements that NIC Asia's savings are insecure and the situation may be similar to that of the cooperatives, so the savings should be withdrawn. At that time our CD ratio was 77.18 percent and liquidity ratio was 27.28 percent which means we had more liquidity than we needed.

What is the basis that NIC Asia Bank is strong in all indicators?

To see how strong banks are, ``Camel's Rating'' is considered as the basis at the international level. Camel's Rating examines the capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity and sensitivity of banks and financial institutions. In terms of capital, we are well above the minimum limit set by the regulator, in terms of asset quality, we are the second commercial bank with the lowest non-performing loan (NPL) ratio in the banking industry. The kind of business expansion, profit, dividend distribution that we have done in the last seven years confirms that our managerial ability is strong. In terms of earnings, all our indices including net profit, earnings per share, equity are positive. Currently, banks are allowed to maintain a CD ratio of up to 90 percent. Our CD ratio is below 80. We have more than 25 percent of the minimum 20 percent liquidity required. So we have much stronger liquidity than what is required by the regulator. We rank among the best in all areas, including liquidity, which are indices that should indicate a strong commercial bank.

Due to the big mergers in the financial year 2078/79 and the financial year 2079/80, among the commercial banks, we have fallen down from the first place bank in terms of business size and profit. But we are still among the biggest. In terms of branch network and number of customers, we are at the first place. However, our goal is not to be number one in terms of numbers but to become the bank of first choice for all stakeholders. Our earnings per share is 70 percent higher than the overall banking sector average and 51 percent higher than the overall banking sector average for return on equity. The number of customers is almost twice the overall banking sector average.

It is said that NIC has achieved these achievements in a short period of time, i.e. 6-7 years.

About 6.5 years ago, the size of our bank's balance sheet was 99 billion, which reached 434 billion by December 2080. Similarly, our number of customers has also increased from 5.5 lakh to about 45 lakh. The situation is similar in every index including profitability, branch network. We first created a dream in the bank as 'One Bank One Team One Dream'. And we built a bank management that can make that dream a reality and with a clear roadmap vision of doing meaningful banking in a different way by capitalizing on the quality of service, the use of technology and the availability of a wide network, we became the first choice bank of the stakeholders. We extended 360 branches, 151 expanded counter and 670 ATMs. & Nbsp; In order to strengthen the

quality of service, we made the provitational banking and even serving every activity of banks and providing the customer through more digitals. As a result, we have succeeded in being a number in digital banking. We have about 3.5 million traders every day today, which is only more than 300,000 digital through. Our market share in the transaction of Mille Banking, POS, CUR, Debit Card, is a very important difference. In some digital front, we have succeeded in all a long-third of the market. & Nbsp;

we have done more digital infrastructure to create and secure more than physical infrastructure, including branch. In the meantime, our mobile banking user grew from 1.2 million and Rs 9.4 million from around 26 million and Debit Cards. Now every year is adding more than 500 new client in us, which is really a bulk of the confidence of people over us. The more indices in the banking sector are historical heights of the banking sector, historic heights, all the NIC is in the name of Asia Bank.

but NC Asia Bank has been accused of being presented in the registration, the credit collection collection of the NRB, which is not allowed to close the branch, not receiving branch.

NRAB is not the process of researching it, it is the language of the media. NRB is doing the regular monitoring of our wither or all other banks. Is a regular job of the nation bank. His annual calendar is followed. Not only special monitoring in us. We have not received a petition to close any branch. In case of request, the NRB Bank was not related to approval. Similarly, the work of the bank is to compile deposits from citizenship. Here's role is only financial mediation. In all kinds of conditions or circumstances, the security of the bank's deposit, the security and responsibility of the bank is the bank. Therefore, the loan suggests that the loan can be collected later later. According to this, the bank will take charge of the cash flow of the cash flow, income, a substitute. This is International Creation. We are doing according to the same. By giving enough time to debt to give enough time, by fulfilling the debtor of the nation bank, carrying out all legal processes, and reclooked to collect.

is still less than a Bank's primary capital directly directly than the guided capital directed, what did you have stopped you to increase primary capital? & nbsp;

Primary capital has been in our bank not only in our operations but also in the operation. At present, the primary capital of banks is an average of 9.63 percent, in the past about 12 percent. Most of the reduction in credit collection increases, most of the banks are under pressure from primary capital. NRB has also found information for facilitating on the industrialization of this banking industry. Hopefully, the instruction will continue.

are younger of a large bank of a large bank in the country, especially in a proficient youth in a country, especially in the country, especially, do you need to stop?

led abroad for more than 1 trillion last year. In Nepal, the most lively foreign investment is about 20 billion. Last 5 billion rupees for about Rs 5 billion only foreign investment. As a number came to Nepal this year, the country earned only 61 billion. Nepal only spent a foreign tour for about 44 billion in the last year when about 44 billion. In the last Fiscal Year, we imported about 250 billion in agriculture production. If what it seems, we not only to increase poverty, increasing poverty, to increase poverty, and to increase the morale of the entrepreneur, and the practice of industrialization in the country, and to facilitate them everywhere in the country and To strengthen itself. What I mean, I am shortages in Nepal, neither sources. So we have to communicate a positive-blood blood that something can be done in the country. Problems and challenges are in every country. Despite all kinds of problems and challenges, we have to do many in this country. Everyone should contribute their support, including state, banking system in this. We must respect the business of all businessmen to increase economic activity to increase production, and increase the basis of revenue to increase production within the country. They need to facilitate. And only we go in the right direction. Only then comes direct foreign investment. So now all should make the economy together. 10 people did not return for ten. The only way we win is the prosperity of the economy.

in the end, even some responsible authorities have started an expression of banks. Campaigning that we do not turn on microfite debts seem to arrive from the bank. How have you seated this topic? In

Nepal, Microfinance has made a very large contribution to the paralysis of the poor and deprived families in the lower level of the pyramid. Efforts have been taken to take a mortgage to 1.8 million, such as a, b and CQ's financial institutions, which microfinance would only provide a state of about 2.7 million. By meditating on this fact, we are building foundation of the problem, contributed to the needs, contributing the needs of microfinance organizations. You must go to that side.