Khalti has been granted a “payment service provider” licence under the Nepal Rastra Bank’s Payment and Settlement Bylaw for Wallet Services through telecommunication technology and internet.

Along with digital payment services, Khalti can now provide domestic money transfer facility and mobile financial services in Nepal, the company said in a press statement.

Khalti was launched by a team of young entrepreneurs on January 26, 2017. After getting the licence, the team is encouraged to take financial services to the next level, the company said. “It will work to bring offline services to online and make the lives of people easier,” said Manish Modi, managing director of Khalti.

“Digital payment is a very recent phenomenon in Nepal. Still today, people have to walk for days to reach district headquarters to perform tasks as simple as paying electricity bills. We are excited to get the licence from the central bank,” he said.

The company aims to expand digital payment services in rural and remote parts of Nepal and add different verticals to our platform. “We will work to make online payments possible in every corner of the nation to achieve the vision of Digital Nepal. We will work to bring access to finance to underprivileged population of Nepal and simplify their lives,” said Modi. As per Nepal Telecommunication Authority’s latest report, the country has over 132 percent mobile telephony penetration and 59 percent broadband internet penetration.

Likewise, the central bank’s latest statistics show that over 6 million people use mobile banking in Nepal, and the number of internet banking users is around 1 million.

However, as per World Bank’s 2017 Global Findex Database, only 45 percent of Nepal’s population is banked. So, a digital payments system like Khalti can play a significant role to bring the unbanked population onto a digital platform and provide financial services, the company said.

Khalti provides various utility bill payment services, mobile recharge, DTH recharge, domestic flight booking, movie ticketing, event ticketing, hotel booking, newspaper subscriptions, and payments at online shopping sites among others. Furthermore, Khalti offers users with cashback on almost every transaction.

Currently, more than 800,000 people regularly use Khalti for various bill payments services.