No signs of ‘Big Merger’ in the upcoming Monetary Policy; "Monetary Policy will not be unveiled this week" says Rastra Bank

The much talked about ‘Big Merger’ seems to be out of topic from the upcoming Monetary Policy. The has been an ongoing expectation about the introduction of big merger in order to reduce the number of banks.

However, Mr Nar Bahadur Thapa, Executive Director of Nepal Rastra Bank, clarified in a program that despite the focus of Rastra Bank is to decrease the number of commercial banks but the time is not favorable for implementing the decision.

In the program he stated that due to increment in minimum capital requirement, the number of development banks decreased to 35 from existing 86 and the number of other financial institutions decreased to 25 from the existing 79. “But the number of commercial banks did not change as expected. Rastra Bank has been studying the matter but it is not possible to implement the big merger in the current circumstances.” he added.

The monetary policy is not supposed to make any great changes in the banking sector. He also said that the monetary policy will not be unveiled this week.