Nepal Bank Ltd (NBL) to get a new managerial team

KATHMANDU: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) governor Bijayanath Bhattarai said Nepal Bank Ltd (NBL) — the oldest bank of Nepal — will soon get a professional managerial team. NBL is being run by Dr Binod Atreya, who was sent from (NRB). There will be a conflict of interests if the central bank continues to run NBL. The central bank is the regulatory authority, and it has been running NBL for more than two years. A high level committee including finance minister, vice-chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC), finance secretary and governor has been formed to work out the details of NBL's and Rastriya Banijya Bank's (RBB) reforms and to look after the overall financial sector reform programme, Bhattarai said. NBL has 41 per cent government share and RBB is wholly a government undertaking. Though these banks have been successful in reducing Non Performing Assets (NPA) over the years, the government has to inject capital to revive these banks. NBL and RBB at the end of fiscal year 2007-08 had 12.4 per cent and 21.7 per cent NPA respectively. They again reduced NPA to 8.6 per cent and 18 per cent respectively by April 13, 2009. "But, they still have negative capital fund," Bhattarai added. — HNS