Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) has allowed banks and financial institutions (BFIs) to sell the Swedish kroner, Danish kroner, Hong Kong dollar, Kuwaiti dinar and Bahrain dinar from Monday. Previously, they could only buy these currencies but not sell them.

The central bank moved to eliminate controls on these currencies in line with the new monetary policy. It has been fixing the buying rates of these currencies only.

“As we have been witnessing a shortage of US dollar bills for the last few years, we decided to allow sales of these currencies too to reduce the demand pressure on the greenback,” said Bhisma Raj Dhungana, executive director of NRB.  “Now travellers going to Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, Kuwait and Bahrain can get the currencies of these countries from banks.”

According to central bank officials, the provision has been created to make life easier for the Nepali migrant population as international travel has increased substantially.

In the past, returnee migrants remained in the country so there was no need to allow banks to sell diverse foreign currencies. “The dynamics have now changed, and we are liberalizing the foreign exchange regime,” said Basu Dev Adhikari, director of the central bank.

In recent years, Nepali outbound has become a common phenomenon for different purposes, largely for foreign employment.

According to bankers, they cannot open nostro accounts in currencies whose selling rates have not been fixed. A nostro account is an account held by a bank in a foreign currency in another bank.

The provision for trading the US dollar, Euro, British pound, Swiss franc, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Singapore dollar and Japanese yen has existed for a long time. The Chinese yuan, Qatari rial, Thai baht, Saudi Arabian riyal, UAE dirham, Malaysian ringgit and South Korean won were allowed to be traded freely recently.