Kathmandu, Jun 1 (UNI) If things go as planned, Chinese mobile payment giant, Alipay, will formally start its digital payment service in Nepal within a few weeks.
The business head of Alipay and heads of compliance, legal and account departments of Ant Financial, which operates Alipay, met officials of Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank, yesterday to discuss launch of the digital wallet in Nepal.
The meeting was held 10 days after Nepal’s central bank completely banned the use of Chinese digital wallets, WeChat Pay and Alipay, in the country, stating loss of foreign income due to unauthorised use of the payment applications by Chinese tourists.
“Since the service was banned, Alipay has stopped facilitating transactions originating in Nepal,” Dev Kumar Dhakal, executive director of the Payment Systems Department of Nepal Rastra Bank, the central bank, told The Himalayan Times.
Alipay is a hugely popular mobile payment application in China with around 700 million active monthly users. In the past, this payment app was being used illegally in Nepal by Chinese tourists visiting Thamel-based hotels, restaurants and travel agencies run by Chinese nationals. This had barred Nepal from logging spending made by Chinese tourists as foreign income because the Chinese mobile payment platform was not registered in the country. The illegal use of digital wallet had also enabled Chinese business operators, who received payment via apps, to repatriate earnings to their home country by circumventing local tax network because they left no evidence to substantiate that those transactions took place in Nepal.
Alipay, for now, has roped in Himalayan Bank to legally introduce its service in Nepal.
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