The Data Economy: Nepal’s Next Frontier for Monetisation and Sovereignty

Nepal is quietly sitting on an asset class that grows every day, compounding in value the more it is used: Data. Every mobile top-up, QR payment, ride request, government form, satellite image, clinic visit, shipment scan, classroom login and hydropower sensor reading creates ‘digital exhaust’ that can be refined into better services, new revenue and stronger governance. The global winners of the last decade did not only build apps; they built data advantage: high-quality datasets, talent that can turn raw information into decisions and rules that keep citizens’ trust. 

For Nepal, the data economy is not a luxury topic; it is a practical path to reduce dependency, improve state capacity, and create exports that do not require trucks crossing borders. Nepal’s GDP is still relatively small in absolute terms at about USD 42.9 billion in 2024 so even modest data-driven productivity gains can move the needle nationally. 

The timing is unusually favourable because Nepal’s connectivity base is becoming mass-market. Nepal Rastra Bank’s Payment System Oversight Report (2023/24) notes that 4G/LTE coverage reaches 741 of 753 local levels, smartphone penetration is about 72.94%, and census-linked indicators show internet access is still uneven at the household level (around 38% of households), which highlights both progress and the inclusion gap that policy must close. The same report points out that the price of mobile data fell sharply from about USD 2.25/GB in 2019 to USD 0.27/GB in 2024, a structural shift that changes what businesses can deliver profitably outside Kathmandu. When data becomes cheap and smartphones are common, sectors that used to run on paper can jump to digital workflows, producing usable datasets by default if Nepal designs the right incentives and infrastructure.

Payments show what ‘data as infrastructure’ looks like in practice. Nepal’s digital payments growth is not only a fintech story. It is a national dataset forming in real time, capturing consumption patterns, SME cashflow rhythms, seasonal demand, creditworthiness signals and even supply-chain bottlenecks. Reporting on a central bank document, The Kathmandu Post described how, over the past three fiscal years, the number of digital payment transactions rose by 43.5% and transaction value grew on average by 23.7%, with QR usage expanding rapidly as acceptance points spread from malls to micro-. This matters because a high-trust, high-coverage payment layer becomes a platform for credit scoring, fraud prevention, tax simplification, targeted subsidies and exportable payment technologies so long as privacy protections and competition rules prevent the system from turning into surveillance or monopoly rent. 

Monetisation, however, should not be misunderstood as ‘selling citizens’ personal data’. Nepal’s real opportunity is to monetise value created from data while keeping personal information protected and locally governed. The most defensible revenue streams come from anonymised and aggregated insights, subscription analytics for enterprises, data-driven software products, and ‘data-enabled services’ such as precision logistics, credit underwriting tools, risk models for insurers, predictive maintenance for hydropower, and demand forecasting for tourism and retail. 

There is also a strong case for data exports that respect sovereignty: Nepali firms can build Nepali-language AI tools, speech and OCR models for Devanagari and local scripts, compliance-grade customer support automation, and domain datasets in areas where Nepal has unique strengths (mountain safety, micro-hydropower operations, trekking logistics, disaster response, cross-border remittance behaviours). These are high-margin exports because what crosses borders is code and models, not container loads. 

Sovereignty is the other half of the equation and Nepal’s own recent history shows why it cannot be an afterthought. In September 2025, Nepal’s government blocked major social media platforms for failing to register locally, triggering major public backlash and raising global attention on who controls digital public squares, what accountability should look like, and how quickly ‘platform power’ can become a national governance issue. Whatever one’s view of that policy, the episode underlined a hard truth: when core digital services, identity layers, communications channels and data flows are external, the state and citizens both become dependent on decisions made elsewhere. A serious data economy strategy aims to keep Nepal interoperable with the world while ensuring that critical datasets, enforcement capacity and dispute resolution are not outsourced by default. 

Nepal already has important building blocks for a sovereignty-first approach but they need to be aligned into a coherent ‘data governance stack’. The Constitution explicitly recognises a right to privacy that covers ‘document, data, correspondence’ and related matters, making data protection a constitutional concern rather than a mere policy preference. Nepal also has the Privacy Act, 2075 (2018), which includes provisions on collection, processing and use of personal information, though implementation capacity and clarity around modern data practices remain ongoing challenges. Meanwhile, multiple analyses note that Nepal’s evolving draft legislation around information technology and cybersecurity has included privacy-related provisions, and that parts of these proposals remain under debate or not yet enacted highlighting the need for clear, enforceable rules that businesses can comply with and citizens can trust. 

Policy strategy should start by defining which datasets are ‘strategic national assets’ and how they can be accessed safely. A practical model is to treat certain high-value datasets: land and cadastral records, business registries, education credentials, health supply chains, disaster risk maps, hydrology and weather readings, mobility and road safety statistics as infrastructure, not departmental property. The state can then enable controlled access through modern mechanisms: secure data exchanges, audit trails, tiered permissions and standardised APIs, paired with strong penalties for misuse. 

Nepal’s Digital Nepal Framework explicitly positions digital transformation as a national pathway to socio-economic growth and a knowledge-based society, and newer iterations and discussions signal a push toward more structured digital ecosystem. The key is to move from ‘digitising services’ to ‘designing data systems’, so that every digitised workflow also improves national intelligence and service quality. 

Infrastructure choices will determine whether Nepal captures value or leaks it. If most Nepali data is stored and processed abroad by default, Nepal pays a recurring ‘data rent’ through cloud bills, loses local jobs and weakens enforcement leverage in disputes. Nepal has long recognised the importance of state-controlled digital infrastructure; government data centre initiatives under public agencies demonstrate that the concept of centralising and securing critical government data is not new. But the next phase requires hybrid thinking: a resilient domestic backbone for sensitive government and national-scale datasets, combined with certified private-sector clouds and regional partnerships for elasticity, disaster recovery and cost efficiency. The goal is not isolationism; it is bargaining power having credible domestic capability so Nepal can negotiate cross-border data arrangements from strength. 

A data economy also demands talent and market structures that keep value inside the country. Nepal should prioritise three pipelines at once: data engineering (how to collect and structure data cleanly), applied AI (how to build models that deliver measurable outcomes), and data governance (how to keep systems lawful, secure and auditable).

The central bank’s own reporting highlights both the opportunity and the risk: as digitalisation reaches the grassroots, cybersecurity and digital financial literacy become just as important, because fraud and weak security can destroy trust faster than any marketing campaign can build it. This is where Nepal can create a ‘trust premium’ for its tech sector: companies that can prove privacy-by-design, strong security practices and responsible AI will win enterprise and government contracts locally and become credible exporters in a world tightening digital rules.

If Nepal executes well, the data economy can strengthen national finances in ways that feel almost invisible but are deeply transformative: less leakage in procurement, better targeting of subsidies, reduced fraud, improved tax compliance with lower administrative burden, smarter infrastructure planning and faster disaster response. It can also create a new export category, Nepali-built analytics products, AI services, compliance tooling and sector-specific platforms helping diversify beyond remittances, which remain a large macroeconomic pillar. 

World Bank data shows remittances are a significant share of Nepal’s economy, and recent World Bank reporting continues to highlight how remittance inflows shape external balances and household resilience. The strategic point is not to replace remittances overnight; it is to build an additional engine of foreign exchange and high-skill employment that scales with brains and bandwidth, not with migration pressure. 

Nepal’s next frontier is therefore not just ‘more apps’ but a national deal with its citizens and businesses: ‘Share data in well-governed systems and in return you get better services, stronger rights and a fair share of the value created’. That deal requires clear consent norms, strong privacy enforcement, independent oversight, transparent procurement and competition rules so that no single platform becomes an unavoidable toll booth. It also requires measurable outcomes: reduced service delivery times, lower fraud rates, cheaper credit for SMEs, safer roads, smarter energy dispatch and a public sector that can plan using real evidence. 

Countries do not become sovereign in the 21st century only through borders and armies. They become sovereign through control of critical information flows. If Nepal builds its data economy intentionally monetising insights, not identities, it can turn digital growth into durable national power.