NMB Bank becomes full-fledged

NMB Bank, Nepal's first financial institution to upgrade to a category 'A' financial institution from category 'C', has commenced its full-fledged operations as the 25th commercial bank of the country.

Addressing a press conference Monday, Upendra Poudyal, chief executive officer (CEO) of the bank, said the upgrade was a great leap forward in the history of the bank.

He praised the rich human resources of the bank and added that the highly motivated and experienced human resources had enabled the institution to expand from a finance company with Rs 200 million of paid-up capital to a commercial bank with a paid-up capital of Rs 1 billion within a period of 12 years.

“Though we have been achieving satisfactory success in major sectors of banking like retail and merchant banking, our major focus in the days to come will be on the corporate sector,” he said.

In a press statement, the bank said it raised its paid-up capital to that the required by the central bank by issuing rights shares in the ratio of 1:4.

Asked whether the current number of banks isn't too high to a small Nepali economy, CEO Poudyal said that given the low financial excess, there is good scope for expansion of banking services to realize the full potential of the Nepali economy. “However, it would be good to expand the services by expanding the banking capacities of the existing banks through mergers rather than adding the number of banks, Poudyal said.

Source: eKantipur