Industry leaders in Kathmandu advocate for a comprehensive digital payments framework linking payments, identity verification, and document exchange to facilitate scalable cross-border commerce between India and Nepal.
Industry leaders meeting in Kathmandu have called for a broader India-Nepal digital payments framework that goes well beyond simple money transfers, arguing that cross-border commerce will only scale if payments, identity checks and document exchange are linked together.
At NDTV’s Anviksha event, Dr Bal Krishna Bal of Kathmandu University said the existing UPI-NPI link was a welcome advance, but not a complete solution. He argued that the next phase should connect payment rails with identity verification and the secure sharing of documents so that cross-border transactions can move through a single, joined-up system.
The launch of the UPI-NPI corridor on 6 June has already given India and Nepal a working cross-border peer-to-peer remittance channel, according to Livemint and other reports. The service was introduced through the technical integration of India’s Unified Payments Interface and Nepal’s National Payments Interface, and is intended to support low-cost, real-time transfers through banking apps and digital wallets.
But speakers at the Kathmandu forum said business users still face wider frictions. Semanta Dahal, a lawyer and partner at Abhinawa Law Chambers, said disputes in cross-border payment systems can involve several institutions across two jurisdictions, making them difficult to resolve. He urged regulators to set up direct regulator-to-regulator arrangements for handling conflicts.
Surakchya Adhikari, chief operating officer of Thulo.com, said person-to-person payments are moving ahead more quickly than business-to-business transactions, leaving e-commerce firms and other companies with gaps to fill. She also said Nepal’s young people want more digital opportunities, but often run into obstacles when trying to make practical use of global platforms and services. Paras Kunwar, chief operating officer of FonePay, added that payment systems also generate valuable data on sales patterns and consumer behaviour, which entrepreneurs can use to build services for both countries. Dr Bal said that better digital payment infrastructure could also help start-ups, artificial intelligence services and job creation.
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