NCHL signs RTGS agreement with commercial banks

Kathmandu, May 14:

Nepal Clearing House Ltd. (NCHL) has signed agreement with majority of the commercial banks as Integration Partner to facilitate the banks for integrating its core banking system with Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) that is under implementation by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB).

The agreement was signed on Tuesdayin the presence of the Executive Director of Payments System Department NRB, President of Nepal Banker’s Association (NBA) and the CEOs and representatives of various commercial banks.

The NBA had coordinated the event.

As per the arrangement, the NCHL will facilitate the banks in providing required ‘RTGS Integration Middleware’ that will enable the banks to initiate and process transactions between RTGS system and its internal system, which is considered to be the key component for the successfulrollout of RTGS system.

The NCHL will facilitate the banks for integration, which is expected to support the NRB’s initiative of timely implementation of RTGS.

NCHL has been providing its member banks and financial institutions (BFIs) with the payment infrastructures of NCHL-ECC, NCHL-IPS and connectIPS e-Payment systems, along with necessary integration components and other consolidated application programming interfaces (APIs).

As part of the RTGS Integration, the NCHL will be customising the existing integration arrangements to support the requirements of the banks for RTGS.

RTGS system is meant for processing of high value transactions between the participating banks financial institutions and for settlement of net clearing positions of national payment systems.

RTGS in Nepal is being implemented by the NRB with support from DIFID, Sakchyam Access to Finance for Poor Programme, corresponding to which the system is being rolled out with commercial banks and NCHL in the first phase, said the company.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 15 May 2019.