eSewa started its journey in 2009. But there were a few rules and regulations for the online payment system at that time. In 2016, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) implemented guidelines related to payment service providers which paved a clear path for digital financial services in the country. Since 2016, there have been several developments in the realm of digital financial services. The number of digital transactions has increased tremendously.
Recently, NRB has stated that digital payment has decreased the cost of disposing of older banknotes. Similarly, fintech has helped propel the inclusion of underbanked and unbanked people in the last few years. NRB's latest report states that there are around 16.75m active digital wallet users in Nepal. These days, people can carry on with their lives even if they don’t carry banknotes, which is the biggest change that we are seeing today. Likewise, the number of players in the fintech sector has also grown increasing the competition which has fostered innovation in the market. How is eSewa’s mobile wallet business currently? What is the market share? Only five percent of the national economy has been digitalized to date. And in that, we hold around 75 percent of the digital transaction which means eSewa has been the industry leader. This has benefitted not only our merchants and agents but also the end-users. Our initiatives such as raising digital payment awareness of Nepalis, educating the users and agents, and motivating merchants to get integrated into digital payment have contributed a lot. It is said that there is less profit margin in the mobile wallet business. What is the case with eSewa? The entire digital business works with unit economics meaning volume is needed to thrive in business. This is the only way mobile wallets have survived worldwide and so similar is the case in Nepal. The more services companies integrate, the more users they can have. Similarly, the more merchants they have, the more business they can get The growing number of mobile wallets in Nepal has raised questions about their survival. Do you see the prospect of mergers and acquisitions between digital payment service providers? If the existing players have inefficiency, there will always be room for betterment. This means, there is always a space for new players in the market. As I said earlier that only five percent of the economy has been digitized, all are contributing to the journey of digitalization and the players are contributing in their own way in the economy. Given this situation, companies can survive if they can perform better. How do you see the future of fintech companies in Nepal? Will they be able to get foreign direct investments (FDIs)? NRB recently introduced a policy where now payment service providers and payment service operators can have up to 15 percent of their paid-up capital as FDI. So, fintech companies can bring FDIs. eSewa is also doing great in remittance. Though eSewa remit doesn’t come under my watch, what I can say is in a short period of time, we are in second position in Nepal in terms of bringing remittances. How do you see the scope of the field of digital finance from a career development point of view? Fintech has a great future. There will be no industry that will be impacted by technology. Everything is getting integrated with technology. There is still much to be done in fintech in Nepal. We are just in payment systems but there are many aspects including credit, savings, lending, insurance, investment, and finance that are yet to be developed. I think fintech and digital platforms will be the most efficient channels in this regard in the future. Similarly, there is a big scope for the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in fintech. Many new things will come up and career prospects are definitely good in this field. We have been hearing about the quality of customer services of eSewa lately. How is the company working to better handle the complaints of customers? eSewa has come up with new app features to serve customers better. We get around 11,000 phone calls per day. Our front-line staff are there to attend calls to solve issues of the users. Recently, we integrated an in-built feature in our app which allows users to note their queries so that they don’t have to call us over the phone. We are working more on it. They can lodge their complaints and check whether the problems have been solved or not. We are also planning to introduce a chatbot with instant customer service in the future.
