Kathmandu. The government-owned National Commercial Bank has entered its 58th year. The bank has been providing banking services by addressing the financial needs of the country. The bank has played a significant role in making the government policies and programs successful by providing loans to industry, trade, priority sectors, productive sectors and the underprivileged. The bank is determined to provide modern and quality customer-friendly banking services through effective management of resources.

Edited part of the interview with Kiran Kumar Shrestha, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the bank for the bank.

Changes in the size and presence of other banks will affect the position of this bank. However, this bank of ours has a long history of 58 years, is majority owned by the government of Nepal and has a network from the main cities of the country to remote rural settlements. Although the customers have different faith and trust in this regard, the bank is currently conducting programs in a planned manner, realizing the need to make timely changes in its capital base including technology and manpower management to make itself competitive in the banking sector. As far as the possibility of merger between government-owned banks is concerned, it depends on the policy and directives of the Government of Nepal. If the government deems wig merger necessary, merger between government-owned banks is possible.

In the 58 years of the bank's history, it is thought that this bank has reached its present status because of the old banks and government-owned banks that have developed banking habits among the common people, and have changed their working style and procedures according to the times and modernized the service facilities. We are currently trying to prove the fact that all government agencies can be competitive by changing the traditional thinking that government-owned agencies cannot be competitive, they cannot deliver services as per the expectations of the customers and the employees of such agencies cannot be customer-friendly. As a result of our efforts, it has been felt that the competitiveness of this bank has increased. If our campaign is successful, the bank can achieve more achievements and I believe that such achievements will be long-term.

The financial and non-financial indicators of this bank are leading in the banking sector of Nepal. As of today, the total deposits of this bank are 2 trillion 82 billion rupees and the total loan balance is 2 trillion 41 billion rupees.

The non-performing loan of the bank is about 2.09 percent, the base rate is 1.29 percent, and the loan-to-deposit ratio is 83 percent. The total number of customers transacting with the bank has reached about 3.8 million, and in terms of geographical presence, there are 265 branch offices operating in all 77 districts of all 7 provinces and also in all district headquarters. The bank has also made a significant leap in the digital banking sector. So far, there are about 7 lakh ATM users, about 1.6 lakh mobile users, 20 thousand internet banking users and 10 thousand BLB users.