Century Commercial Bank becomes 31st commercial bank in the country

The central bank has awarded Century Commercial Bank with the operating licence today making it the 31st commercial bank in the country.
"The bank has Rs 5 billion authorised capital and Rs 2 billion paid up capital," said Pradeep Man Baidhya, chairman of the bank that has 538 promoters.
"The promoters has 54 per cent shares and is planning to float 46 per cent shares to the public," he said, adding that it had, earlier, planned to float 30 per cent shares to the public according to the central bank's directives.
After some problem with the promoters, the youngest commercial bank has changed its capital structure.
Headquatered in Kathmandu, the bank has Ganesh Kumar Shrestha as its chief executive officer.
Though, the central bank has temporarily halted the licencing for the commercial banks claiming that it needs revision on the banks licencing policy, there are couple of development banks that have applied for the up gradation to the Class-A commercial banks.
But the central bank is, unlike earlier, not speeding up their upgradation as it has changed the policy of awarding licence on the basis of paid up capital only.
According to the central bank, it is revisiting its policies according to the recent development in the financial sector. "Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) is not putting the curb on opening new banks but trying to revisit the current licencing policy to make the banking industry more competent,” according to central bank.
The Monetary Policy for the fiscal year 2010-11 has also spelled out the Merger and Acquition (M&A) proposition for the banks and financial institutions (BFIs) saying that the economy needs strong but few BFIs not more and weak ones.
There are 245 banks and financial institutions in the country licenced by the central bank including Class-A (31 commercial banks), Class-B (80 Development Banks), Class-C (79 Finance Companies) and Class D (25 microfinance institutions) and some NGOs with limited banking facilities.