Nepal Rastra Bank’s Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari has been appointed as the chairperson of SAARC FINANCE on November 15. The 42nd SAARC FINANCE Governor’s Meeting held on the same date elected him as the chair, effective from November 16.
There, the governors of all the member nations discussed virtually about the following aspects:
- Current economic and financial scenario of the respective economies
- The balance of payment,
- Gross foreign exchange account,
- Credit flow,
- Inflation,
- Liquidity management,
- Digital payments,
- Human resource development,
- Hydroelectricity, and
- Tourism
As the new chairperson of SAARC FINANCE, Governor Adhikari will be sharing his experience on the management of economic and financial policies in the economy. He will serve in this position for a year.
About SAARC FINANCE
SAARC FINANCE is the network of all the governors of the central bank and finance secreteriats of the 8 member countries. It is a network and collaboration entity established by the SAARC Summit in September, 1998. Nepal got the membership of this authority in 2002.
The basic objective of establishing it is to share experiences on macroeconomic policy issues among member countries of the region. Basically, it is a networking institution that focuses on the discussion of financial and economic issues of the member countries.
This is one of the prestigious achievements for Nepal.
The appointment of Governor Adhikari will boost Nepal’s influential position among the SAARC Countries
Nepal is the founding member of SAARC since 1985. It has successfully organised the 3rd, 11th and 14th SAARC Summits in Kathmandu.
Along with these, Nepal has also contributed much by entering into various agreements under the principle of SAARC. SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation (Electricity) is one of them. With the appointment of Governor Adhikari in SAARC FINANCE, Nepal can reach greater heights in the geopolitical scenario.
Since his appointment, Governor Maha Prasad Adhikari has whole heartedly supported the goal of Digital Nepal. In this regard, he has introduced many notable reforms in the digital payments and fintech sector during his tenure.
In his tenure, he inaugurated the launch of QR code payment service in the local vendors market in Naxal, Kathmandu. Similarly, Nepal QR Standardization Framework was published by NRB to give guidelines to the QR code operators. Additionally, Nepal is soon getting National Payment Switch which would integrate the fund transfers between wallet to wallet.
Not only that, but also the number of PSPs and PSOs have increased in Nepal. Therefore, it has given rise to the use of digital mediums for payments. Moreover, the current monetary policy has stated additional 1% interest on the deposit of remittance money. This would surely bring most remittance inflow under the formal channel.
Read more about his contribution here: The leadership of the Governor on the Vision Path of Digital Economy: Facilitating Digital Payments
Along with that, the most notable contribution by him was to approve international payment gateway in Nepal by NRB.
