June 13:Nirdhan Utthan Bank Ltd has signed an agreement with International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, for loan.

 The bank's CEO Janardarn Dev Pant and Mohammad Rehan Rashid, resident representative of the World Bank for IFC in Nepal, signed the agreement amid a function on Monday, June 11. The bank said that the loan from IFC is subject to approval from Nepal Rastra Bank.

As per agreement, IFC will be providing Rs 1 billion loan to the bank. 

Nirdhan Utthan Bank said in a statement that it has been extending financial services and social awareness to the poor in under-served areas of Nepal in a sustainable manner, and the IFC loan shall be mobilized to further broaden the outreach of Nirdhan Utthan Bank to expand lending to underserved segments and areas.

Along with credit lending, the bank has also been conducting various trainings like skill development trainings, entrepreneurship development trainings, financial literacy trainings, business development trainings as well as various awareness programs for poor clients for their socio-economic development.

Nirdhan Utthan Bank has a network of 190 offices which includes 179 branches under 10 regional offices in all 77 districts of all 7 provinces in Nepal. The bank said it has been serving around 311,069 numbers of households in Nepal with outstanding loan balance of Rs 15.09 billion and saving deposit of Rs 7.98 billion as of mid-May 2018.