India and Nepal are among the leaders globally when it comes to digital payments, but a lot more needs to be done in the sector, industry leaders said at NDTV’s Anviksha event.
Industry experts advocated for more developments in interoperable payments, identity connectivity, and digital public infrastructure between India and Nepal.
Held in Kathmandu, The NDTV Anviksha: Ideas Across Borders event brought together policymakers, entrepreneurs and other leading figures from Nepal and India. One of the discussion panels centred on how India-Nepal digital payments could change cross-border business. He cited the need for more developments in interoperable payments, identity connectivity, and digital public infrastructure. “Payment is one part, but we need to have this identity verification and exchange of documents. This hampers companies and e-commerce ventures. “They’ve been seeing people doing amazing things in the outer world, India and other countries. So they want to do the same and they think it’s possible. But when they hit the ground, they realise there are so many challenges and that frustrates them,” she added. She explained that digital payments can help the youth achieve a lot, but challenges, such as difficulty in making payments for digital marketing to technology giants like Meta, remain. He added that these insights can be used by entrepreneurs to create solutions that can benefit customers across both countries.
So that the whole ecosystem basically gets a complete cycle,” he said.
Dr Bal Krishna Bal, Associate Dean, School of Engineering, Kathmandu University, said that the cross-border UPI-NPI facility payment facility was a welcoming step in terms of advancing digital payment infrastructure. He called for a “complete integration” between all three components – payments, identity verification and exchange of documents. Semanta Dahal, advocate and partner at Abhinawa Law Chambers, highlighted that in cross-border payment facilities like the one between India and Nepal, multiple players are involved, so any potential disputes pose “significant multi-jurisdictional and multi-institutional challenges”. He recommended setting up a “regulator-to-regulator” agreement for resolving such disputes. ‘B2B Transactions Need More Attention’ Surakchya Adhikari, Project Lead and Chief Operating Officer, Thulo.com, said that person-to-person digital payment transactions are proceeding, but the same cannot be said for business-to-business (B2B) cross-border payments. Talking about Nepal’s Gen-Z population, Adhikari said that the generation is looking for jobs and opportunities. Dr Bal said that digital payment would create some opportunities for startups and AI based services, leading to more jobs for the youth. FonePay COO Paras Kunwar said that digital payments also move data, giving businesses signals about sales trends, consumer behaviours, and much more.
