eWallet integration in Nepal (Khalti and IME Pay)
It’s much easier to let customers pay directly on your website through a payment gateway than to ask them to pay using Facebook or other social media, especially for online shops. And in 2025, there’s good news for people who shop online in Nepal: IME Pay and Khalti are joining hands to create a new, bigger digital wallet.
Khalti
Khalti is quite popular among Nepali youth. Since 2021, Wordlink owns 40% of Khalti. It’s ISO certified, officially registered as an e-wallet, and regulated by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). Many people in Nepal use Khalti to pay for events, quizzes, and movies. It also has some exclusive partnerships. Khalti is backed by Summit Group, one of Nepal’s large business groups.
In 2022, Khalti’s young CEO, Binayak Khadka, who is also a chartered accountant, shared that the most common services people use are utility payments, top-ups, NEA bill payments, internet bills, and flight ticket bookings. Back then, Khalti was handling around 300,000 transactions every day. People often praise its user-friendly design and smooth interface. Khalti also offers QR payments, built completely by their own team of 50 developers without using third-party tools. Like other wallets, Khalti neither gives nor takes interest on balances.
Ime pay
IME Pay is a Nepali e-wallet launched in 2017 by IME Digital Solution Ltd. under Nepal Rastra Bank’s license. It’s owned by IME Group, which also owns DishHome. IME Pay lets people get remittance money (both from inside Nepal and abroad), send money to others using their phone number or bank account, and pay many kinds of bills, like mobile, electricity, water, TV, internet, insurance, EMIs, cable car, and even movie and flight tickets.
One of its special features is the “Super Wallet,” which can give around 4–7% yearly interest on wallet balances if your KYC is verified and some monthly conditions are met. IME Pay also gives both physical and virtual Visa cards, including NFC tap-to-pay, with no cost to get them, two free ATM withdrawals per month, and cashback on things like fuel, mobile top-up, and data packs.
You can also scan QR codes to pay, and IME Pay has a big network, over 25,000 agents and partnerships with more than 50 banks, covering all 77 districts, making it easier to use even in rural areas. It has been downloaded over 1 million times and has about 1.5 million users, showing it’s becoming quite popular. For safety, IME Pay is PCI DSS 4.0 certified, which means it follows international security standards to keep your payments secure.
What after integration of IME pay and Khalti
Nepal Rastra Bank has finally approved the merger of Khalti and IME Pay. After merging, this will become Nepal’s biggest e-wallet based on number of users, transaction volume, number of agents and distribution centers, capital, and staff.
The merged wallet will keep the name “Khalti” and will be officially registered as IME Khalti Limited, with its office in Panipokhari, Kathmandu. Together, they’ll have over 5 million (50 lakh) users, making it the largest in Nepal by paid-up capital and customer base. They’ll combine all users of both IME Pay and Khalti.
After merging, they also plan to offer remittance services from anywhere in the world to Nepal, plus bank account opening, Visa card issuing, and even credit services. The ownership will be divided with IME Group holding 55% and Khalti’s side holding 45% of the total capital.
Right now, Khalti has about 25% of Nepal’s e-wallet market share and IME Pay has around 15%, so together they’ll have about 40% market share.
Also, by the end of June, some other Nepali e-wallets like Sajilo Pay and Paywell had their licenses canceled by Nepal Rastra Bank under section 35 of the act, which came into effect in 2075 BS.