Nepal Stock Exchange (Nepse) on Thursday said it will soon initiate the process of appointing two financial companies to work as clearing banks.

Currently, Global IME Bank is the sole clearing bank that works to settle capital market transactions. 

Nepse General Manager Sitaram Thapaliya said the addition of two clearing banks will ease the settlement process. “We will issue a public notice soon seeking applications from requesting interested financial institutions,” said Thapaliya, speaking at the 6th anniversary of CDS and Clearing Limited, a subsidiary of Nepse.

Securities Board of Nepal—the stock market regulator—has long been asking Nepse to appoint new clearing banks.

With Nepse enforcing paperless stock transaction system for the past year, the transaction volume in the secondary market has leapt to over Rs1 billion daily from Rs300-400 million. Due to the massive rise in trading, stockbrokers have also been urging the regulator to appoint more clearing banks.

Meanwhile, CDS and Clearing has so far settled transactions worth Rs227.18 billion. It has opened a total of 506,993 demat accounts, while over one billion paper-based stocks have been dematerialised.