In a world where everything is getting digitised, it is no surprise that even money is slowly making that transition. Today, one doesn’t necessarily have to carry wallets bulked up with cash, receipts, and credit cards anymore. With the invention of digital or e-wallets, people can now receive or make payments and keep track of it all with their phones. All one has to do is find a service that is reliable and secure. 

Digital wallets or E-wallets can be defined as a method of performing monetary transactions through electronic devices. One can simply use mobile apps, the internet or SMS to perform these transactions. 

Using digital wallet is easy—once the registration process is complete and the user has been verified, all one has to do is log in with their credentials.  Once logged in, the user can make any amount of transactions, depending on the balance they have on the platform.

A few digital wallets in Nepal that are bound to make your life exponentially easier are: 

eSewa

Developed by F1soft, eSewa is Nepal’s most popular digital wallet. Its number of users has been burgeoning every year, and with the service being granted a mobile money license by the Nepal Rastra Bank, eSewa will only expand its horizon in the future. 

With eSewa, a plethora of online transactions have become astonishingly easy. Users are able to buy anything from movie tickets to flights through the service—and all of it through some easy clicks from a gadget.  

For the movie ticket booking, major multiplexes like QFX, BigMovies, BSR Movies, View Cinemas Butwal and F-Cube Cinemas accept payment via eSewa. As for the flight ticket booking, both domestic and international flight tickets can be booked using the eSewa wallet. For domestic air ticket bookings, eSewa has partnered with some of the most frequently used airline services like Yeti Air, Buddha Air, Saurya Air, Shree Air, and Simrik Air. Meanwhile, popular online shopping portals like Threadpaints.com, Sastodeal.com, and Smart Doko have also teamed up with eSewa, providing the digital-wallet with a scope that no other company can boast.

The services provided by eSewa do not end there. Users can save themselves the misery of long and sluggish utility queues, by conveniently paying their monthly bills online. Internet bills, newspaper subscriptions, and telephone bill payments can now be done online. And though limited to a few places, eSewa has also added electricity bill payments to its lineup of services.

eSewa has also been acting as a platform to send and receive remittance. The number of Nepalis going abroad for foreign employment is growing each year. To facilitate a seamless transfer of money from one country to another, eSewa has also become an exclusive digital remittance partner of Western Union, offering services that no other e-wallet can offer at the moment.

Topping up your eSewa balance and withdrawing it is hassle-free as well, with the service tying-up with nearly fifty banks. So far, eSewa has offered a wide range of services and it seems to be expanding even more as it matures as a company. Although, eSewa has a mobile app, transaction via the app is not mandatory. Users can use eSewa services via free SMS—an added bonus. 

Khalti

Khalti was launched at CAN infotech 2017 in late January this year. In less than a year that it has been in the market, Khalti has been able to offer a wonderful lineup of services and go head to head with the monopoly eSewa commands in the mobile wallet sector. Furthermore, Khalti was recently honoured at the Google Business Group storytelling contest, where the company not just won the contest but was also declared the People’s Choice Winner. Khalti was developed by Sparrow Pay Pvt Ltd and the app was previously accessible only through the Android and web platforms. Now, starting this September, it is available to iOS users too.

In terms of services offered, Khalti is not much behind pioneering eSewa. For the replenishment of the mobile balance, paying telephone bills, DTH and ISP bills, movie ticket booking and online domestic air ticket booking, Khalti is almost shoulder-to-shoulder with eSewa. Furthermore, Khalti can be used to purchase the Kaspersky Anti-virus services.

Khalti is playing its part in driving the push for a cashless digital ecosystem, constantly expanding its lineup of services and pushing other providers to up their game as well. Starting with Kathmandu Valley, Pokhara, and Nepalgunj, users can now pay their electricity bills via Khalti. In addition, Khalti has also become a medium for paying water bills in Itahari, Kakarvitta, and Dhanuka. 

In order to lure users to Khalti, the service has rolled out various generous offers, bonuses and cash-backs on transactions. However, currently, Khalti has teamed up 

with just Nepal Investment Bank Limited, Machhapuchchhre Bank Limited, and Mega Bank Nepal Limited, therefore is only accessible to a limited amount of users. 

iPay

iPay is a subsidiary of Muncha.com, which was one of the first online shopping portals in Nepal. iPay started its services in 2010 and since then it has been toiling to establish itself as an online payment gateway. The iPay app is available both on the App Store and Play Store and its services can also be accessed through its website. Unlike Khalti and eSewa, which use the email address or mobile number or both for the account setup; iPay solely relies on the email address for the account setup and demands it every time before letting you access your account. 

As iPay is owned by Muncha, its strengths naturally lie in the field of online shopping; and in services like mobile balance top-us, online domestic air ticket booking, DTHs and ISPs bills payment, iPay is not much behind eSewa and Khalti. 

In addition, with each transaction, iPay is providing a lavish amount of rewards. 

Although iPay had a long journey, it has failed to muster a large number of users. Till now, iPay has been able to team up with Nepal Investment Bank Limited, Kumari Bank Limited, Everest Bank Limited, Laxmi Bank, NIC Asia, and Global IME Bank. And with the pace of its progressions, we cannot expect much new services to be added to the lineup in the near future.