Nepal Clearing House Ltd. (NCHL) is a public limited company established on 23rd December, 2008 (8 Poush 2065) under the leadership and guidance of Nepal Rastra Bank (The Central Bank of Nepal). It has equity participation from Nepal Rastra Bank, commercial banks, development banks and finance companies. NCHL recognizes banking & financial technology-oriented services as one of the key ingredients for the Banks and Financial Institutions (BFIs) to improve their efficiency, and productivity and also provide innovative financial solutions to their customers. And NCHL intends to help them realize these by providing various technology-based payment-related services without having to invest heavily into infrastructures by the BFIs.
NCHL as per its strategic objectives to establish multiple payments, clearing and settlement systems in Nepal is currently operating Electronic Cheque Clearing (NCHL-ECC), Interbank Payment System (NCHL-IPS), Retail Payment Switch (RPS), connectIPS, CORPORATEPAY, connectRTGS and National Payment Interface (NPI).
With the mandate and approval from Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), NCHL is currently implementing the NPS project. The first phase of the project, the Retail Payment Switch (RPS) has already been rolled out which enables non-card-based transaction interoperability for routing and settlement of transactions along with the establishment of NEPALPAY QR scheme. Whereas the second phase of NPS which is still in under implementation phase shall implement interoperability of card-based transactions through the rollout of the Interoperable Card Switch and Domestic Card Scheme for Nepal.
BFIs are enrolled in NCHL systems as participating members and are responsible for their payment transactions and clearing operations. Non-bank institutions are enrolled as Indirect or Technical members for initiating their payment transactions through their respective banks from various underlying payment systems of NCHL.
Electronic Cheque Clearing (NCHL-ECC) is an image-based, cost-effective, MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) cheque processing & settlement solution where an original paper cheque is converted into an image for electronic processing of the financial transactions between participating member Banks/FIs. The physical movement of the cheques are truncated or stopped at the level of the presenting bank in the NCHL-ECC System. The cheque does not physically travel to the clearing house or to the paying branch as it used to do in the manual clearing process, resulting in faster and easier processing of the cheque transactions.
Customers can present the cheques at the nearest branch of its bank, who will process the transactions using NCHL-ECC.
Regular Cheque Clearing support clearing of cheques of up to NPR 200 million in case of NPR cheques from Sunday to Friday and up to 2 million in the case of USD, GBP and EUR cheques from Monday to Friday. The presentment cut-off time is at 15:00 and the paying bank response cut-off time at 17:00 with the final settlement after 17:15 such that the customer account is credited within 17:30 from Sunday to Thursday. Whereas the presentment cut-off time for the Friday session is at 12:00 and the paying bank response cut-off time is at 13:30 with the final settlement after 13:45 such that the customer account is credited within 14:00.
Express Cheque Clearing is a special clearing session of short duration for processing urgent cheques for settlement within 2 hours window from presentment to final settlement thus allowing the Banks/FIs and their customers to present and realize their cheques faster. Express cheque clearing supports clearing of cheques of up to NPR 200 million in case of NPR cheques and up to 2 million in case of USD, GBP and EUR cheques.
Currently, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Express Clearing Sessions are available from Sunday to Friday with NPR sessions available on all business days and USD, GBP and EUR sessions available only from Monday to Friday. The last presentment cut-off time in Express Session is at 13:00 from Sunday to Friday.
High Value Cheque Clearing is a special clearing session for presentment of high value cheques of above NPR 200 Million to 300 Million in case of NPR cheques and above 2 Million to 3 Million in case of USD, GBP and EUR cheques. The presentment cut-off time is at 15:00 and the paying bank response cut-off time at 16:00 with final settlement at 16:15 such that the customer account is credited within 16:30 from Sunday to Thursday. Whereas the presentment cut-off time for Friday session is at12:00 and the paying bank response cut-off time at 13:00 with final settlement at 13:15 such that the customer account is credited within 13:30
NCHL-IPS is an interbank fund transfer system where bulk or one-to-one transaction from any of the participating member banks & financial institutions (BFIs). It supports account-to-account payments (Direct Credit) and collection (Direct Debit) related transactions.
National Payment Switch (NPS) is the core infrastructure for routing and settlement of retail transactions to ensure interoperability of card and non-card-based payments within Nepal. It includes Retail Payment Switch (RPS) for handling retail (non-card) based transactions and retail instruments, whereas National Card Switch (NCS) includes card switch and domestic card scheme.
RPS is an operational real-time retail payment switch with additional instruments to support VPA-based payment, Request To Pay-based pull transactions, interoperable QR, biller gateway, wallet interoperability, and PSO settlements. Card switch and domestic card scheme are currently under implementation.
All the instruments and use cases of RPS are extended through NPI, which is an open API for the members to extend and integrate with its system and /or channels.
NEPALPAY Instant is a virtual payment address (VPA) based direct credit instrument. A sender can initiate a transfer based on an identifier of the beneficiary, which could be mobile number or email id or any other identifier. This reduces a need of exposing bank accounts for fund transfers, either for P2P transfer or B2P payments. This allows the customers to initiate transfer or payment from their respective channels mobile/internet banking or wallet or connectIPS or any other service providers directly into beneficiary’s account or wallet based on VPA.
NEPALPAY QR is an implementing infrastructure of NepalQR as per the standards of published by Nepal Rastra Bank. It works as an independent domestic QR scheme and also supports QR interoperability at merchant level and inter-network level. It enables members to issue and acquire static, dynamic and gateway-based QR for its merchants. APIs and interfaces for Issuers and Acquirers are available for the member BFIs or PSPs with additional arrangement of merchant management system for the members.
NEPALPAY Request is a direct debit Instrument (pull transactions) whereby a receiver can request for a payment, by generating a non-financial message, which upon approval (automated or for each request) by the payer will initiate a payment. It can be event-based Request-to-Pay (R2P) for P2P transfer or B2P where payee can use any of the digital platform (Mobile Banking, Internet Banking, Digital Wallets, connectIPS, CORPORATEPAY or NPI) and send payment request to concerned payer. Upon confirmations from the payer, a transaction is processed seamlessly.
NEPALPAY Request also supports recurring e-Mandate payments for a specified frequency and time period, whereby on due date the standing instruction amount will be debited from the payer and credited to payee. E-Mandates can be used for recurring service payments as an option for AutoPay or AutoDebit. NEPALPAY Request can also act as an Account Tokenization, where a bank account can be linked to a particular payment platform as account tokens and the same token will be used for the financial transaction.
This enables interoperability between the multiple PSPs and wallets, whereby fund transfers from one PSP to another can be done with ease. It also allows the BFIs and other service providers to access and transfer funds to any PSP from a single platform without the requirement for individual integration.
It enables service interoperability by providing bundled service APIs for integration in any of the alternative digital channels used by the customers. It works on a concept of global merchants/ creditors, whereby such services acquired in the network by any of the member will be available for rest of the members and their customers to consume, including the non-conventional services. This reduces multiple acquiring and eases integration within issuing instruments.
This allows the PSO to execute their final settlement of their participating BFIs at RTGS through NCHL. The net clearing position of a PSO or similar entity will be processed through NPI and settled at the central bank’s fund of the respective BFIs. This reduces the requirement to arrange for multiple funding for each PSO and reduces the settlement risk for such PSOs.
connectIPS is a faster payment system implemented as a standardized single payment platform for real-time retail payments. It provides multiple channels of web portals, mobile apps, payment gateway, and open APIs for initiating and processing transactions for the customers of the member banks and financial institutions (BFIs).
Customers can link multiple bank accounts within connectIPS and then use such accounts for fund transfers or service payments. The payment gateway of connectIPS is accepted as a major e-commerce portal, whereas the API of connectIPS is available in mobile banking of the majority of the BFIs and wallets of the PSPs for fund transfer, cash-in, or cash-out.
Website: www.connectips.com
National Payments Interface (NPI) is the consolidated Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) of multiple payment systems hosted by NCHL or any other institutions built in an Open API platform concept. It currently provides access to NCHL-IPS system and RPS underlying payment systems with the overlaying services built on top of the platform.
It primarily supports inter-connection and interoperability for the participating members with seamless integration to RPS for real-time instant payments, to NCHL-IPS for deferred credit payments and access to all the instruments, services & use cases.
With NPI, members will have access to the underlying payment systems including NCHL-IPS, RPS, and its related instruments and/or services. The open APIs will enable the member for automating its payout (real-time, non-real-time) as a single transaction or bulk transaction.
CORPORATEPAY system is a business payments platform that allows the corporate and business customers of the member banks & financial institutions (BFIs) for initiating digital payments from any of the accounts maintained at member banks. It allows the business customers to process real time payments through connectIPS e-Payment system and non-real time bulk payments through NCHL-IPS system, with all the necessary multi-user controls required for such business transactions.
Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system supports the processing of high value and urgent transactions between the participating BFIs and for settlement of systemically important payment systems on net settlement basis. It provides immediate realization of funds and minimizes the settlement risk of the other payment systems. The central RTGS system is implemented and hosted by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).
connectRTGS is an integration component for integrating banks & financial institutions’ (BFI) internal system with the RTGS system hosted by NRB. It is a gateway to enable the BFIs to initiate and process RTGS transactions. It has outward module to initiate outgoing transactions and inward module to process incoming transactions from RTGS system. It is integrated with the bank’s system to enable full STP for the banks in order to comply with the SLA of the RTGS system prescribed by NRB.
Refer to RTGS Operating Procedure issued by NRB for business day schedule, limits and other details about RTGS system. Or contact your bank for initiating RTGS transaction or for further details.
Powered by the Retail Payment Switch under the National Payment Switch, the NEPALPAY TAP is the new payment feature currently enabled through connectIPS Mobile App (with the scope of extension in Mobile Banking / Wallet App) to support NFC (Near Field Communication)-based transactions between two devices in close proximity.
It can be used for P2P and P2M payments as contactless transactions. The payer’s smartphone needs to be NFC-enabled to use this feature. Payers can make payments by just tapping NFC-enabled smartphones onto NEPALAPY TAP-enabled Android-based POS devices available at merchants. There is no need for internet connectivity at the payer/sender end in order to make such payments with NEPALPAY TAP.
How to enable NEPALPAY TAP on connectIPS App:
• Login into connectIPS mobile app using your Username and Password
• Click on the button at the top of the page to go to My Profile section
• Click on Enable NEPALPAY TAP
• Set per transaction limit (Rs. 500 to Rs. 5,000) and per day transaction count limit
• Enter your transaction password to confirm
(Note: NEPALPAY TAP is currently available in Android app only)
What is the transaction limit for NEPALPAY TAP in connectIPS?
Mobile Channel
Maximum amount per transaction N/A NRs. 5,000/-
*Per transaction limit can be controlled by the user (Rs. 500 to Rs. 5,000)
*Respective banks and financial institutions may have different limits as per their internal policy
Contact:
3rd Floor, Kamaladi Complex Kathmandu, Nepal
LandLine:01-5970065 014255306
Email:[email protected]
TOLL FREE: 16600155306 (For NTC) 9801528400(NCELL)
Website: www.nchl.com.np