Bolt, the first European super-app offering mobility services across Europe and Africa, has announced the piloting of its service in Kathmandu, starting from Wednesday.

According to the company, more than 400 drivers are ready to start accepting hire services.

“Drivers will be allowed to keep money from all rides as Bolt will not charge any commissions for at least six months,” Sugandha Bhandari, Bolt’s public relations manager, told the Post in an email interview.

The company said it would offer service fees 15 percent lower than other competitors in the market, ensuring more earning opportunities for drivers and offering service at the lowest prices in the market.

The company is currently providing its services in Thailand.

"Our goal is not only to offer our drivers higher revenues per hire, but also to ensure a high demand due to competitive prices,” said Ireoluwa Obatoki, regional manager at Bolt.

“We currently do not have a representative office in Nepal. Our customer services are made available through the app and online,” she added.

The company said it is coordinating operations in Nepal from its Estonian headquarters. “Both customers and drivers will only need to register and sign up to the app in order to start using it,” said Bhandari.

In order to become a Bolt driver, a person has to have a car or motorbike and all necessary licenses required by the local regulations.

“We carefully analyze all the markets that we decide to expand to and we believe we have opportunities to grow in Kathmandu. We are frugal with our efforts and that means that we can't afford to start our services in countries where we don't believe we have a good business case,” said Bhandari.

“We see that Kathmandu is a thriving marketplace for private urban transport, and there is a lot of room for competition in the current transportation sector.”

In some markets where Bolt is providing their services, for instance, in Spain and Belgium, both traditional taxis and private hire services are on the Bolt app.

“We have seen from those markets that these two sectors can peacefully coexist and we hope that we will be able to have traditional taxis on our platform as well,” the company added.