Nepal’s new Integrated Anti-Cyber Scam Response Centre has stopped fraudulent transfers across as many as nine layers of bank accounts within 15 minutes, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) director Sushil Paudel said on Monday.
How the centre works
The Home Ministry issued the Guideline on the Establishment and Operation of the Integrated Cyber Scam Response Centre, 2026 on Oct 9. The centre sits in the Nepal Police Cyber Bureau’s new building in Samakhusi, Kathmandu, and began operating on Friday, Nov 6. Its public hotline is 1247, and it runs 24 hours in three shifts.
Paudel said 30 personnel staff the centre, eight of them police. Twenty commercial banks and the payment providers Khalti and eSewa have representatives there.
Before the centre opened, a victim had to contact their bank, file a complaint with the Cyber Bureau, and wait for police to write to the receiving bank and follow the money. Cyber Bureau spokesperson Deepak Raj Awasthi said obtaining information through official correspondence could take months, and that some victims pursued cases for up to a year.
The guideline sets targets rather than guarantees. Complaints are to be registered within 10 minutes, transactions traced in 10 to 30 minutes, and freeze requests made to institutions in 10 to 60 minutes. The centre is also to have SIM cards and malicious digital infrastructure disabled.
Freezing versus recovery
The centre’s responsibilities include coordinating the return of funds through court orders under existing law. Section 52 of the Electronic Transactions Act, 2063 says financial benefits obtained through computer fraud are to be recovered from the offender and given to the person concerned. It carries a fine of up to Rs 100,000, up to two years in prison, or both.
Paudel said a separate NRB circular is not needed and that evidence of fraud can justify returning funds. He said account holders who dispute a restriction would need to establish their innocence through legal proceedings. The guideline’s court-order process and Paudel’s remarks have not been reconciled publicly. The centre has said accounts frozen by mistake can be released.
Scale of losses
Cyber-fraud losses exceeded Rs 2 billion in fiscal year 2025/26, with Rs 180 million recovered. Police put the three-year recovery rate at about 8 percent. The Cyber Bureau received 4,255 online-fraud complaints in 2023/24, 6,740 in 2024/25 and 7,379 in 2025/26.
NRB’s Annual Report 2024/25 recorded 26.77 million wallet users, 27.74 million mobile banking users and 2.22 million internet banking users in mid-July 2025, up from 23.46 million, 24.65 million and 1.92 million a year earlier.
Gaps in coverage
Development banks and finance companies do not have staff at the centre. Paudel said they are reached through designated contacts and the hotline, and that some development banks were slow to respond. NRB gave verbal instructions to improve response. These institutions have been told to appoint focal persons available around the clock, and could be required to send representatives to the centre if they fail to respond. Paudel warned that criminals could move stolen funds to finance companies to exploit delays.
NRB’s Financial Intelligence Unit found in its 2024 report that fraudsters use multiple accounts across banks and wallets, sometimes opened days apart, and test whether accounts are frozen with transfers as small as Re 1. It also documented cash withdrawals from ATMs, including cardless withdrawals and withdrawals at ATMs and point-of-sale terminals in Indian cities. Money already withdrawn in cash cannot be frozen. About 70 percent of people suspected of involvement in the report’s sample were aged 19 to 30, and students were the most common occupation.
