Why accept digital payments?
Customers in Nepal increasingly pay from their phones. A business that accepts only cash makes paying harder than it needs to be. Digital payment also helps the business itself:
- Money arrives sooner. A customer can pay a bill the moment it is received instead of on the next visit.
- Less cash to handle. Fewer counting errors, no change problems and less risk in carrying cash.
- A record of every payment. Each transaction has a date, amount and reference.
- Payment from a distance. Parents, patients' relatives and customers in other districts can pay without travelling.
The main options
- Digital wallets such as eSewa and Khalti, where customers pay from a wallet balance or linked bank account.
- QR payments, where the customer scans a code at the counter with a mobile banking or wallet app. Fonepay is the most widely seen QR network.
- ConnectIPS, which pays directly from a bank account and suits larger amounts.
- Mobile banking transfers to your business account.
- Cards, accepted through a bank's card machine or online gateway.
How to start accepting them
At a shop or office
Ask your bank or a wallet provider for a merchant QR code. You will need your business registration and PAN documents and a bank account in the business's name.
On a website or app
Apply for a merchant account with the payment provider, then have a developer connect its payment gateway to your site. The customer is taken to the provider's secure page to pay, and your system receives confirmation automatically.
Connect payments to your records
The real saving comes when a payment updates your records by itself: the invoice is marked paid, a receipt is sent by SMS and the day's total is correct without typing. This matters most for schools collecting fees, cooperatives collecting instalments and online stores.
Staying safe
- Confirm that money has arrived in your own account or merchant report; do not rely on a screenshot shown by the customer.
- Check your merchant statement against your sales every day.
- Never share an OTP, PIN or password with anyone, including callers claiming to be from the bank.
- Give staff their own logins rather than sharing the owner's.
Fees
Providers charge merchants a fee on some payment types, and rates differ by provider and business category. Ask for the current rates in writing before you choose.
For the technical side, read our eSewa and Khalti integration guide. We connect payments to websites, apps and ERP systems as part of web development and ERP development.
