List of Microfinance Institutions (Laghubitta) Licensed by NRB

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the country's central bank, organises the banking system into four classes under the Bank and Financial Institution Act (BAFIA), 2073 BS (2017 AD): Class 'A' commercial banks, Class 'B' development banks, Class 'C' finance companies, and Class 'D' microfinance financial institutions. Class 'D' institutions, known in Nepali as laghubitta bittiya sanstha (लघुवित्त वित्तीय संस्था), are the smallest tier by balance sheet but by far the most numerous. They specialise in delivering small, largely collateral-free loans and savings services to low-income households, women's groups and micro-entrepreneurs who fall outside the reach of mainstream banks.

A microfinance institution (MFI) typically lends without conventional collateral, relying instead on group guarantees, compulsory savings and frequent repayment cycles adapted from the Grameen model pioneered in Bangladesh. Loans commonly fund livestock, small retail shops, agriculture, cottage industry and other income-generating activity, mostly in rural and peri-urban Nepal. Because they take deposits from and lend to their members, laghubitta are full financial institutions that must hold an NRB licence, unlike savings-and-credit cooperatives, which are registered separately under the cooperative law and are not directly licensed by the central bank.

The whole sector is supervised by NRB's Microfinance Institutions Supervision Department, which issues licences, sets prudential and capital rules, caps lending interest rates and monitors periodic reporting. This directory compiles the current NRB-licensed Class 'D' list and explains how the institutions are classified by ownership function and by geographic working area.

According to NRB's official List of Banks and Financial Institutions dated Mid-January 2025 (Poush end, 2081 BS), there are 52 licensed Class 'D' microfinance institutions. This number changes frequently because the sector is actively consolidating through mergers and acquisitions, so the live figure published on the NRB website is always the authoritative one to quote.

Nepal's microfinance industry expanded very rapidly after 2010 as licensing opened up, and the number of Class 'D' institutions peaked at around 90 in 2019. NRB then deliberately pushed consolidation, using higher capital requirements and merger incentives, to curb over-lending, multiple borrowing by the same clients, and unhealthy competition between overlapping institutions. The count fell to roughly 64 by mid-2022 and to 52 by early 2025, and further mergers continue to reduce it, so some names on any list may disappear as deals complete.

The legal foundation for licensing is BAFIA 2073 (2017), read together with the Nepal Rastra Bank Act, 2058 BS (2002), and NRB's unified directives and microfinance licensing policy. To be licensed, an institution must be registered as a public limited company, meet the minimum paid-up capital for its category, and restrict its business to the working area NRB has approved.

The 52 Class 'D' microfinance institutions below appear on NRB's Mid-January 2025 list, shown in the order the central bank publishes them (broadly by their date of operation). The full legal names all end in 'Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Ltd.' (microfinance financial institution). Because consolidation is ongoing, always cross-check this directory against the latest list on the NRB website before relying on it for a loan application, job search or investment decision.

Class 'D' institutions come in two functional types: retail and wholesale. Retail microfinance institutions, which make up the large majority of the 52 licensees, lend directly to end-borrowers, usually organised into small groups or centres, and take their savings. Wholesale (or 'apex') microfinance institutions instead lend to retail MFIs and to savings-and-credit cooperatives, providing them with bulk funds to on-lend; they generally do not deal with individual poor borrowers themselves.

The wholesale segment is small. Sana Kisan Bikas Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha (SKBBL), headquartered in Babarmahal, Kathmandu, is the largest wholesale lender and channels credit mainly to Small Farmers Agricultural Cooperatives (SFACLs). RSDC Laghubitta (from Butwal, Rupandehi) is the main wholesale institution registered outside the Kathmandu Valley, and First Microfinance Laghubitta has also historically operated in the wholesale space. The former Rural Microfinance Development Centre (RMDC), long the sector's flagship apex lender, merged into Sana Kisan Bikas Laghubitta, with joint operation beginning on 9 July 2023.

The wholesale/retail split matters for borrowers, investors and job-seekers alike: a wholesale institution is not where an individual applies for a group loan, and its financials, capital requirements and risk profile differ from those of a retail lender that serves thousands of village clients directly.

NRB licenses each microfinance institution to operate within a defined geographic working area, and the paid-up capital required rises with the size of that area. On the Mid-January 2025 list the working-area categories are national level, province level, and multi-district level (for example 4-10 districts or 1-3 districts). Most of the larger and better-known laghubitta hold national-level licences, while several smaller, community-rooted institutions are confined to a single province or a cluster of districts.

As an indicative guide to NRB's licensing thresholds, a national-level retail microfinance institution is generally required to hold minimum paid-up capital in the order of Rs 10 crore (Rs 100 million), with lower thresholds for province-level and district-level institutions, while wholesale microfinance institutions must meet a substantially higher requirement of around Rs 60 crore (Rs 600 million). These minimums have been revised over time and are one of the main levers NRB has used to force weaker institutions to merge, so the exact current figure for any category should be checked against NRB's latest circular.

Working-area rules also shape competition and consumer protection. An institution licensed for a limited district cluster is not permitted to open branches nationwide, and NRB has periodically tightened branch-expansion and client-overlap rules to reduce the multiple-borrowing problem, where one household takes loans from several MFIs at once.

The pioneers of private microfinance in Nepal remain among the sector's largest institutions today. Nirdhan Utthan Laghubitta (NEPSE symbol NUBL), headquartered in Naxal, Kathmandu, began operations in 1999 and grew out of the Nirdhan NGO; it is consistently one of the biggest MFIs by deposits and clients. Deprosc Laghubitta (DDBL) of Bharatpur, Chitwan followed in 2001, as did Chhimek Laghubitta (CBBL) of Old Baneshwor, Kathmandu, which has grown into the largest microfinance institution by deposits. Swabalamban Laghubitta (SWBBL), Kamal Pokhari, Kathmandu, licensed in 2002, rounds out the founding generation.

The government-backed Grameen Bikas (Regional Rural Development) Banks, established across Nepal's development regions in the 1990s, were the earliest microfinance lenders of all and were later consolidated into Grameen Bikas Laghubitta. Newer entrants such as Forward Microfinance (FOWAD) of Sunsari and Meromicrofinance (MERO) of Nuwakot have also become prominent, and many larger banks and business groups have sponsored their own MFIs, including NMB, Global IME, NIC Asia, Laxmi, Himalayan and National Microfinance.

The great majority of Class 'D' microfinance institutions are publicly listed on the Nepal Stock Exchange (NEPSE) under the microfinance sub-index, which makes them a popular though volatile segment for retail investors. Familiar trading symbols include NUBL (Nirdhan Utthan), CBBL (Chhimek), SWBBL (Swabalamban), DDBL (Deprosc), FOWAD (Forward), MERO (Meromicrofinance) and SKBBL (Sana Kisan Bikas). Share prices and market data change daily and should be checked live on NEPSE rather than from any static directory.