Impact of Covid-19 on Microfinance Institutions of Nepal

Prakash Shrestha Ph.D. ()
Additional contact information
Prakash Shrestha Ph.D.: Nepal Rastra Bank

No 51/2020, NRB Working Papers from Nepal Rastra Bank, Economic Research Department

Abstract: Nepal has also been impacted by the spread of Covid-19 which was originated in China in late December 2019. The spread of pandemic has both health and economic effect in any country. This paper aims to assess the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on microfinance institutions in Nepal based on the data reported by them as per the regulatory requirement. Assessment is done by evaluating the changes in some major financial indicator such as saving, loans, non-performing loans, profitability, change in the number of employees and borrowers among others after the imposition of lockdown measures by the Government to contain the spread of coronavirus. Review of data for the period of mid-March 2020 to mid-July 2020 shows that microfinance institutions have severely been hit by the lockdown measures. However, with the help of NRB policy provisions and some degree of resiliency, they managed to survive during the review period. Since the spread of Covid-19 is yet to over, downside risks still exist as shown by the growing number of overdue borrowers. Concrete, collaborative and innovative approaches are needed to navigate through this troubled times.

Keywords: Covid-19; Microfinance Institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mfd
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nrb.org.np/contents/uploads/2020/10/NR ... mar_Shrestha_PhD.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nrb:wpaper:nrbwp202051

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NRB Working Papers from Nepal Rastra Bank, Economic Research Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Publication Division NRB ().