10th July 2023, Kathmandu
NEPALPAY QR and SMARTQR have started live operations as interoperable QR at the network level. The end users of mobile baking, wallets, and connectIPS enabled with NEPALPAY QR can scan & pay at SMARTQR merchants.
Similarly, mobile banking and wallets of the SMART QR network can scan & pay at NEPALPAY QR merchants.
The joint public announcement of the collaboration was done in an official program held today in Kathmandu in the presence of Narayan Prakash Bhuju, CEO of Smart Choice Technologies Ltd (SCT), and Neelesh Man Singh Pradhan, CEO, of Nepal Clearing House Ltd. (NCHL), along with the presence of representatives from banks & financial institutions and various media representatives.
The two domestic QR networks of NCHL & SCT have collaborated for network-level interoperability to support and promote QR payments.
Now, the customers and merchants will not have to search for specific QR for such payments. The issuing app and merchant QR will work on both networks.
QR scan & pay feature for both NEPALPAY QR & SMARTQR is currently available in Mobile banking apps of Machhapuchhre Bank, Sanima Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Global IME Bank, Everest Bank, NIC ASIA Bank, Himalayan Bank, Kamana Sewa Bikas Bank, Garima Bikas Bank, ICFC Finance, IME Pay, Khalti, Prabhu Pay, HamroPay, Cell Pay, N-Cash, iCash, Paywell, and connectIPS. Similarly, other BFIs and wallets are in the process of being rolled out.
There are over 27 BFIs and 3 PSPs currently acquiring NEPALPAY QR and over 25 BFIs and 9 PSPs whose mobile banking or wallets can be used to scan NEPALPAY QR. Similarly, there are 6 BFIs and 9 Digital Wallets providing services as Payment Service Providers as members within the SMARTQR network.
SMARTQR and NEPALPAY QR have over 250,000 and 350,000 QR merchants within their respective networks, which gives aggregated access to over 600,000 merchants. Both the QRs can work as independent domestic QRs and as aggregated merchant QR with availability at merchants as physical QR or dynamic QR integrated with their billing system or QR in POS devices or QR in payment gateway in their e-commerce portal.
The QR interoperability has been implemented through Retail Payment Switch (part of NPS) and as per the NepalQR standard issued by Nepal Rastra Bank.
The QR interoperability at issuing app level, merchant level, and inter-network level is expected to further increase QR payments and ease the customers for making such transactions.
