Nepal and Bhutan have approached the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for collaboration to make use of its digital payments services, NPCI Managing Director and CEO A P Hota said on Thursday.

The NPCI had sought permission from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow it to provide the services to the two neighbouring countries, he told PTI from his Mumbai office.

"Nepal and Bhutan are the two countries where specific requests have come for collaboration - means they would like to make use of our digital payments services. They would really like us to help them," he said.

NPCI was started by RBI with a mandate to develop an Indian payments switch to drive financial inclusion in the country.

With ten banks as its initial shareholders, the company developed the RuPay debit card payments platform, National Automated Clearing House for cheque clearance and the Unified Payments Interface.

The NPCI, however, has suggested a country-to-country partnership, wherein it will provide continuous technical support to Nepal and Bhutan, Hota said.

"We have written to RBI, and it has to permit us to really help them," he said.

Normally, Hota said, such technical help involved huge costs and was not a viable financial proposition.

"We know it for certain that things like connectivity building is not a very viable financial proposition. Not many people will keep shuttling between these two countries to establish connectivity," he added.

Hota, however, said the primary focus of NPCI was to tap the Indian payments card market and it does not have any global ambition to create international network. Developing countries were visiting NPCI for a learning curve.

"Normally, they are visiting us as part of their study trips. We have not got any business delegation from any country so far. Even we received people from Bangladesh, from Bhutan and Sri Lanka, but they visited us for a learning curve," he said.

Hota said NPCI would be receiving a study-tour delegation from Indonesia on July 21.