30th September 2022, Kathmandu
Smart Choice Technologies Ltd. and Nepal Clearing House Ltd. are partners for the implementation of internetwork interoperability between NepalPay QR and the Smart QR network.
An official agreement was entered between the companies in a program today.
The agreement was signed by Mr. Narayan Prakash Bhuju, CEO, Smart Choice Technologies Ltd., and Neelesh Man Singh Pradhan, CEO, NCHL in presence of Mr. Guru Prasad Poudel, Executive Director, Payment System Department of Nepal Rastra Bank along with other senior officials of NRB, Board members of both the companies and various media representatives.
This partnership between SCT and NCHL is a key milestone in QR interoperability and is expected to widen the acceptability and usage of QR-based payments. SCT and NCHL will now work on the integration of QR through NPS for realizing interoperability.
With this, the customers having Smart QR enabled in their issuing devices such as mobile banking or wallet can scan and pay to the merchants on-boarded in NEPALPAY QR. Similarly, the customers using mobile banking, wallet, or connect-IPS under NEPALPAY QR will be able to scan Smart QR and pay the merchants onboard in Smart QR network.
While the customers will be able to scan any of the QRs for payment, the member BFIs & PSPs will not require multiple acquiring of the single merchant; and will ease payment reconciliation for the merchants also. There are more than 70,000 merchants acquired in NEPALPAY QR, while Smart QR has more than 160,000 merchants in the market.
NEPALPAY QR has been implemented by NCHL as per the NepalQR standards published by NRB and as part of the National Payment Switch. It works as an independent QR scheme and allows QR interoperability at the merchant level and network level. NPS has already been subscribed by over 57 institutions including 27 commercial banks, 5 development banks, 12 finance companies, and 13 payment service providers.
Smart Choice Technologies Ltd. is a pioneer to introduce an integrated shared switching payment network along with Domestic Proprietary Card Scheme (SCT) in Nepal.
It has been offering diversified payment services and platforms to most commercial banks, development banks, PSP (Payment Service Provider), and other financial institutions in Nepal. It is also providing major digital banking services including SCT UPI Debit Card, Smart QR, Fast Banking, nPay and is a major player in Nepal in driving digital payments.