Haphazard credit disbursement that created irreparable holes in the balance sheet of erstwhile Apex Development Bank has exposed long-suspected counterintuitive practice of ‘evergreening’ of bad loans in the banking sector, which could contaminate and even bring down the entire financial sector.

After Nepal officially made a shift from unitary to federal government system, politicians and bureaucrats rushed to proclaim that authorities, including decision-making powers, would finally be devolved from Singha Durbar, the central administrative secretariat, to provinces and local bodies.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli seems to be making all the right moves in selection of human resources for the new government.

Binod Chaudhary probably does not need any introduction in Nepal. Better known as the first and the only Nepali to be featured in the Forbes billionaire list, Chaudhary’s bittersweet journey and success story, chronicled in his memoir, has inspired many in Nepal and beyond.

Nepalis’ quest for a stable government, which remained a wishful thinking for quite a long time, has finally come to an end with KP Sharma Oli assuming the prime minister’s seat on Thursday.

The Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank, has tacitly said it would not come to the aid of banks and financial institutions that are facing shortage of funds that could be disbursed as loans.

Did the central bank make a mistake by not pushing for merger of banks and financial institutions when recapitalisation process began in the banking sector two-and-a-half years ago?

Globally, social security schemes are meant to ensure that workers do not drop out of the labour market. But Nepal seems to be headed in the opposite direction.

Controversial businessman Ajeya Raj Sumargi and firms affiliated to him have brought around Rs9 billion illegally to Nepal through ‘suspicious companies’ based in tax havens, signalling involvement in shady business deals.

The government is mulling over making a pot of up to Rs80 billion available to banks and financial institutions that are facing shortage of funds to expand lending.

The Ministry of Finance (MoF), in coordination with the central bank, will formally introduce a short-term policy next week to ease the pressure on banks and financial institutions that are facing severe shortage of funds that could be immediately disbursed as loans.

One particular commercial bank is giving well-established financial institutions, like Nabil, Nepal Investment and Himalayan, a run for their money, as it has adopted aggressive strategies to expand its deposit and credit portfolios.

One day in 1991, two 17-year-old boys visited the secretariat of the National Planning Commission (NPC) to meet with its vice chairman, Ram Sharan Mahat. Mahat, who later went on to become the Finance Minister six times over and is now a senior leader of the Nepali Congress, still remembers the meeting, during which the two had asked him to grant them scholarships to pursue further studies.

Controversial businessman Ajeya Raj Sumargi may have formed a shell company called Zhodar Investments Limited in the British Virgin Islands to transfer billions of rupees, amassed through illegal means, to Nepal. This has raised the spectre of the country becoming a breeding ground for financial crime such as money laundering.

Around 29 out of every 100 people living in Nepal are poor, with Province 2 hosting the largest number of poverty-stricken people in the country, a latest report of the National Planning Commission (NPC) says.