EPF starts e payment system

Employee Provident Fund (EPF) has started automating the collateral based loan disbursement directly into the bank accounts of the beneficiary contributors from today by using NCHL’s payment systems, namely NCHL-IPS and connectIPS e-Payment systems. The first few transactions were initiated by Tulasi Prasad Gautam, Administrator of EPF in the presence of Neelesh Man Singh Pradhan, CEO NCHL and other high officials of EPF, NCHL and the banks.
It can now disburse the approved loan amount as per the loan scheme directly into the respective EPF contributor’s bank account maintained at any of the member banks and financial institutions (BFIs) of NCHL.EPF has integrated its system with NCHL to automate all its payouts and collection transactions, corresponding to which it has started from today with payout for one of its products from two of the banks namely Himalayan Bank Ltd. and NMB Bank Ltd. It will be extended for other payout products also and will soon be used for collectionsfrom the contributors as well.
The contributor will have to update its KYC related to beneficiary bank account details to be able to avail of the direct to bank service. The contributor will no longer need to collect cheque and process at the bank for clearing and realisations. All payments up to NRs 10 lakh will be credited on real-time basis through connectIPS e-Payment, whereas high value payments will be processed through NCHL-IPS system to be credited after the settlement on same day or maximum by the next day.
EPF has been considering to automate its service delivery processes to a larger extent, corresponding to which implementation of electronic payments is one of its primary objectives that it has partnered with NCHL for realization. There are over 2.5 lakh payments made every year by EPF, which are processed by issuing cheques. After the full implementation of today’s initiative, cheque based payments will be phased out with complete replacement by e-payments through bank accounts. This is expected to increase the service delivery and operational efficiency of EPF.
EPF isestablished as an autonomous provident fund organization under Karmachari Sanchaya Kosh Act 2019 with an objective of managing provident fund in Nepal and is one of the largest fund managers with total contributorof over 5.5 lakh and 30 thousands contributing offices.
NCHL is promoted by Nepal Rastra Bank and BFIs to establish multiple national payments and settlement infrastructures of which it has been operating NCHL-ECC, NCHL-IPS and connectIPS e-payment systems with participation from most of the BFIs.