Nepal Rastra Bank to issue clean banknotes instead of new notes for Dashain

KATHMANDU: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), which traditionally exchanges new banknotes for Dashain every year, will this time issue only clean notes.

The bank has decided to halt the issuance of new notes to manage expenses.

The NRB had previously planned to shift to issuing clean notes as part of its cost management strategy.

This decision aims to encourage digital transactions and reduce the cost of printing currency.

For Dashain-Tihar, the Nepal Rashtra Bank, which typically provides new currency notes in denominations of 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100, will not offer new currency notes this year.

The bank noted that, over the past five years, an average of 1.3 billion rupees has been spent annually on printing new notes.