March 27, Kathmandu – In an event organised today at the Nepal Bankers’ Association’s (NBA) office in Thapathali, Sakchyam Access to Finance Programme and the Nepal Bankers’ Association signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to further the purposes of financial inclusion in Nepal through joint initiatives in advancing legal/regulatory reform, enhancing SME value chain financing, integrating technology platforms at the industry level and introducing transformational product and delivery channel innovations in the SME finance sector.
Present at the event were Mr. Upendra Poudyal, President, Nepal Bankers’ Association; Mr. Baljit Vohra, Team Leader, Sakchyam Access to Finance Programme; members of the NBA Executive Committee, the Sakchyam team, and members of the local press. Speaking at the event, NBA President Mr. Poudyal said, “The NBA is happy to announce this exciting new partnership with Sakchyam where we will be working on numerous essential innovations to transform the financial sector. I am confident that our partnership and Sakchyam’s support for it will set a precedence of collaborative work to bring in change.”
The key areas that the partnership will focus on through this MoU will be to prioritize and make recommendations on mutually agreeable legal/ regulatory reform actions for enhancing the goals of financial inclusion; establishing a SME Value Chain Finance Knowledge-hub platform; fostering an integrated industry approach to deploying meso-level technology platforms, especially those related to Mobile Financial Services (MFS) and retail payment systems; and introducing transformational product and services innovations in SME finance under the broad categories of credit, savings, ancillary products, delivery channel innovations and enablers.
Speaking of Sakchyam’s interest in the partnership, Sakchyam Team Leader Mr. Vohra said, “Sakchyam and its work culture is all about transformative innovations. I believe that by working toward the innovative goals outlined clearly in this MoU, Sakchyam and NBA will together make a significant contribution toward preparing Nepal’s financial sector for future innovations.”
