By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Sept. 25: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has started studying the possibility of using Central Bank Digital Currency to replace existing fiat currency, said Deputy Governor Bam Bahadur Mishra.
“We are also studying opportunities and challenges of using services related to cloud technology. We will continue to study, explore and adopt digital innovations at the NRB and will encourage and facilitate financial system to adopt it,” he said while addressing a seminar on ‘Knowledge exchange on digital transformation’, organised by the Computer Association of Nepal (CAN) Federation on Friday.
According to him, although payment is a major facet of digital finance, other services should be taken care of as well.

“Customers should be able to open bank accounts without being present in the bank or apply for the loan digitally. Shared platform can be developed to share customer information among different service providers with strong data protection framework so that customers don’t need to present same documents time and again to avail similar services,” Mishra said.
He maintained that artificial intelligence could be used to provide information about different products or services with minimal human interference and to protect financial industry from being used as a gateway for money laundering.

Similarly, cloud computing can be used to increase the flexibility and cost effectiveness of service providers, stated Mishra.
He said that digital transformation and its success are built on the trust and suggested that technology should be tailored to the need of the users and security of transactions should be taken care of.
“Some of the key reforms include making apps available in vernacular languages, informing customers about success and failure of the transactions immediately and robust dispute handling mechanism so that people will trust service provider when they find no one is in front of them physically to listen to them,” he said.

According to him, digital transformation has increased the efficiency and service delivery both in private and public sector, thus boosting transparency and trust in the system.
“As financial services are prime target of attackers, safeguarding trust in the financial system is now particularly important. To protect our system, we need to adopt new cyber security techniques and it needs to be rectified continuously,” he said.

President of CAN Federation, Nawa Raj Kunwar, said that in the age of Information and Communication technology, digital transformation is about technology, data, process, and organizational change. He added that to reap the benefits of the digital reality, the digital transformation should be adapted in business strategy.
He also suggested that Nepal overcome barrier such as digital divide, digital infrastructures to get the digital transformation policies and framework in right direction.

According to him, the programme was organised for the exchange of knowledge of best practices in digital transformation internationally and discuss about shaping future of digital economies in the region, and expanding business opportunities.

The conference was attended by the delegates from the Asia Pacific region and participation was made from diverse sectors, business, technical, and policy-making bodies as government and non-government agencies, telecom operators, bankers and academicians. The programme was organised in a hybrid mode.