Promoting Economic Literacy in Nepal

Background The scale of migration and remittance is staggering in Nepal over the last one-decade. Almost half of all Nepalese households have at least one migrant family member abroad or a returnee. Remittance is a multi-million dollar industry and remittance intermediation is one of the emerging attractive businesses with almost unlimited potential. There are a number of different types of providers inside and outside the formal financial sector of the country offering remittance services. Traditionally, money transfer companies are the most common formal means of sending remittances and lately there are instance of entry of bank and other financial institutions into remittance market. As more remittance providers enter the market, the range of products has also expanded for customers such as mobile banking, e-banking, plastic cards. Remittance income in developing countries has become a lifeline for economic development of those nations. Remittance means sending income in terms...

By Hom Nath Gaire Finance has come a long way since the time when it wasn't recognized as a factor for growth and development. It is now attributed as the life blood of an economic system and most economies strive to make their financial systems more efficient. It also keeps policymakers on their jobs as any problem in this sector could freeze the entire economy and even lead to a contagion. The financial services include the entire range - savings, loans, insurance, credit, payments etc. The financial system has to provide its function of transferring resources from surplus to deficit units but both deficit and surplus units are those with low incomes, poor background etc. By providing these services, the aim is to help them come out of poverty. So far, the focus has only been on delivering credit such as microcredit and has been quite successful in some countries. However, similar success has to be seen in other aspect of finance as well. In this context, financial incl...