Even the digital economy in recession- The world’s leading technology companies have made massive layoffs. Experts have said that only one of the eight working areas of the Digital Nepal Framework, prepared by the government to be completed by 2080/81, has seen significant progress in the financial sector. They say that there is no significant work for digital transformation in areas such as digital foundation, agriculture, health, education, and energy.
Experts are of the opinion that Nepal’s digital economy will not take its true shape until all the necessary systems (ecosystems) are built according to the concept that was prepared four years ago to be completed within five years. “Among the government’s targets in the Digital Nepal Framework, only the financial sector has seen enough innovation, reform and change,” he said.
Sanjiv Subba, Chief Executive Officer of Nepal Electronic Payment System (Neps), who is knowledgeable about digital economy, said in the ‘Benefits of Digital Transformation’ session of Kantipur Conclave-2022, “We need digitization of all sectors including health, agriculture, tourism, energy.” After the digitization of all these, fin-tech will play a key role in integrating them all.
Since the covid epidemic, there has been a significant expansion in the economy and technology sector of Nepal and especially in financial transactions through electronic means. The data of the regulator Nepal Rastra Bank also shows that the users and transactions of electronic payment system are increasing rapidly. According to the monthly data released by the bank, the number of mobile banking users is more than 20 million by January, while the number of those connected to internet banking is 1.764 thousand. Connect IPS has around 1 million subscribers. Also, according to the financial statement from July to February, the turnover of mobile banking is 1 trillion 92 billion 82 thousand rupees.
Internet banking transactions are 13.86 billion and wallet transactions are 18.15 billion and QR transactions are 20.77 billion. 3 trillion 40 billion turnover seems to be the most from Connect IPS. In January 2076, when the Digital Nepal concept was announced, the number of mobile banking users was 9.8 million, while the number of people connected to Internet banking was only 969,000.
“The number of QR-based payments reached 23 lakhs in February 2078, 57 lakhs in January 2079 and 67 lakhs in February,” says Subas Sharma of Fwansoft, one of Nepal’s leading fin-tech companies, “Our growth is seen at 200 percent. Phonepe’s QR merchant has reached 11 lakh. A total of one and a half lakh phonepay QR cards were used in Covid-19 shops.
According to Sharma, in the year 2079, in the digital space, the turnover of business payments in bulk is decreasing, while the turnover of retail payments is increasing. This year, there has been no significant increase in transactions through payment methods such as RTGS and Connect IPS, which are used for large transactions. Compared to last year, this year the average amount of transaction through QR code has decreased from 3000 to 2500 rupees, he said. “The smaller the average size, the more people use this technology,” he said.
The recession hit the tech industry
As the attraction of increased investments and opportunities in the technology sector due to the Covid epidemic has decreased due to the growing economic recession, technology companies in Silicon Valley and other regions have seen a large number of layoffs this year. According to a report published in Crunchbase News Daily, in the first week of 2023, 30 US tech companies laid off more than 21,000 employees.
Dozens of companies including Byzooz, Meta, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, Lyft, Alphabet, Tesla, Sapify, and Netflix were among those who retired. Tech entrepreneurs have lost big this year, according to the recently published Forbes billionaires list.
The total wealth of 313 people who are in the list of billionaires by joining the technology sector has decreased by 2 billion to 19 billion dollars this year, while it was 21 billion dollars last year. Another notable aspect of the global digital economy in the past year is the increased investment in artificial intelligence. Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5 months ago, tech giants like Google and Microsoft have also announced huge investments in the large language model.
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