Kathmandu. Due to the Corona epidemic, the expansion of bank branches at all local levels has been stopped. The Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) had set a target of extending the branches of commercial banks to all local levels as per the plan to provide banking access.

 The process of branch expansion has been stopped after the tree felling started about four months before the end of the current fiscal year. With three weeks left till the end of the current fiscal year, there are still seven branches of commercial banks at the local level, according to Rastriya Bank.

NRB spokesperson Gunakar Bhatta said that the bank would not expand its branches at the local level within the current fiscal year as the corona virus has affected the entire economy and the banking sector.

Prior to the lockdown, only seven local level commercial bank branches were yet to be expanded.

According to the NRB, the commercial banks have reached all the local level branches of Province 2 and Province 5 by mid-April of the current fiscal year. There are 136 branches of commercial banks in Province 2 and 109 branches in Province 5 at the local level.

So far, the bank's branch has not reached Lunka Khola village municipality of Taplejung out of 137 local levels of Province 1, Rubivali village municipality of Dhading and Nesravati village municipality of Dhading in 2 out of 119 local levels of Bagmati province.

Similarly, out of 85 local levels of Gandaki, Mankh's Narkhu Municipality, out of 79 local levels of Karnali Province, Jajarkot's Juli Chande Municipality and out of 88 local levels of Far West, Bajhang's Kanda Municipality and Bajhang's Tharala Municipality have not reached 7 local level branches.

At present, 27 commercial banks, 24 development banks, 22 finance companies, 91 microfinance financial institutions and 1 infrastructure development bank are conducting financial transactions in Nepal.

As of mid-April, there are 4,219 commercial banks, 1,216 development banks, 239 finance companies, 1 infrastructure development bank and 4,021 microfinance institutions with a total number of 9,695 banks and financial institutions in operation.