Nepal’s mBank Technologies has partnered with NMC Multipurpose Co-operative Ltd. (NMC-COOP) to provide more than 150,000 cooperative members with integrated digital banking, payments and lending services through a single mobile platform.
The partnership brings together everyday financial transactions and an expanding range of digital lending services, allowing NMC-COOP members to manage more of their financial activity remotely rather than relying on physical service centres.
NMC-COOP currently serves over 150,000 members through 57 service centres. The new services officially became operational on Shrawan 7 following the signing of the partnership agreement on Jestha 29.
One app combines banking and payment services
Through mBank’s platform, NMC-COOP members will be able to access mobile banking, QR payments, fund transfers, utility payments, other digital payments and Know Your Member (KYM) updates from a single application.
The integration is designed to simplify access to financial services by consolidating functions that cooperative members would otherwise need to manage through physical locations or separate processes.
For NMC-COOP, the platform provides a route to extend digital access across a membership base spread across its network of service centres.
Digital lending to be introduced in phases
A significant component of the partnership is the planned expansion into digital lending.
Members will gradually gain access to loans against fixed deposits and periodic accounts, alongside digital loan repayments, loan statements and applications for new loans.
The platform will also allow users to submit required documents and track loan applications digitally, potentially reducing the number of visits members need to make to physical branches during the lending process.
This moves the partnership beyond basic mobile banking and payments toward digitising a broader portion of the cooperative financial relationship.
mBank targets Nepal’s cooperative financial sector
mBank is positioning the platform around its “One Platform for Banking, Payments & Lending” strategy and its “One App, Multiple Services” model.
The Nepal-based digital financial services provider has more than a decade of experience providing mobile banking, QR payments, digital lending and related technology to cooperatives, microfinance institutions and other financial institutions.
The NMC-COOP deployment provides mBank with access to one of Nepal’s larger cooperative memberships and strengthens its focus on technology infrastructure for the country’s cooperative and microfinance sectors.
“This partnership is not merely an expansion of mobile banking services; it is a shared initiative to transform the cooperative sector through digital technology,” mBank CEO Sanjay Mahaseth said.
“By integrating Banking, Payments and Lending into a single digital ecosystem, we aim to provide members with a simpler, safer and more modern financial experience.”
NMC-COOP pushes deeper into digital services
NMC-COOP operates across savings and credit, agriculture, dairy, tea, remittance and other community-focused services.
CEO Laxmi Prasad Upreti, who was recently elected chairman of the National Cooperative Bank Limited, said technology-driven service expansion would be important to the sustainable development of Nepal’s cooperative sector.
He expects the partnership to provide members with more secure, convenient and modern access to financial services.
The move demonstrates how cooperative institutions can use fintech platforms to expand their digital capabilities without building every component of their technology infrastructure independently.
Digitalisation could reduce dependence on service centres
The addition of lending is particularly significant because loan processes can involve repeated physical interactions for applications, documentation, repayments and account information.
Moving more of these processes onto a mobile platform can reduce administrative friction for both members and cooperative institutions.
For customers located farther from service centres, the ability to initiate and track financial services remotely can also make cooperative finance more accessible.
Why this matters
The mBank and NMC-COOP partnership shows Nepal’s financial digitalisation extending beyond conventional commercial banks and payment providers into the country’s cooperative sector. With more than 150,000 NMC-COOP members gaining access to integrated banking, payments and eventually digital lending, the deployment provides a significant real-world use case for expanding fintech services through community-based financial institutions.
Editor’s note
Nepal’s cooperatives represent an important part of the country’s financial ecosystem, making their digital transformation relevant to the wider financial inclusion agenda. The notable aspect of the mBank partnership is the move beyond payments into lending workflows. If applications, documentation, servicing and repayments can increasingly be completed through a single digital platform, cooperative members could gain access to a more bank-like digital experience without abandoning the institutions they already use.
