Bikram Shrestha’s tenure at Sanima Bank is one of the most substantive and consequential chapters of his professional career. Spanning more than a decade, his work at the bank has touched nearly every dimension of its retail and digital banking operations, from the foundational infrastructure of its e-banking systems to the strategic direction of its retail deposit portfolio. In that time, he has helped transform Sanima Bank from an institution with a developing digital presence into one of Nepal’s more innovative and customer-oriented commercial banks.
His journey at Sanima Bank reflects the same qualities that have defined his work in internet governance and community development: a willingness to take on complex, long-term challenges, a commitment to building systems and teams that outlast any individual contribution, and a deep conviction that the measure of success in financial services, like the measure of success in internet access, is whether the people who need it most are genuinely and reliably served.
Bikram joined Sanima Bank in May 2014 as Head of e-Banking and Information Security Officer. Over the decade that followed, he built and led the bank’s digital banking department through a period of rapid change in Nepal’s financial technology landscape, before moving into his current role as Head of Deposit Management Retail in May 2024. Across both roles, his leadership has been defined by strategic clarity, operational discipline, and a genuine commitment to the customers and communities the bank serves.
Head of Deposit Management Retail
May 2024 to Present | Kathmandu, Bagmati, Nepal
When Bikram moved into the role of Head of Deposit Management Retail in May 2024, he brought with him a decade of understanding of how Sanima Bank’s digital infrastructure works, how its customers behave, and what it takes to build the kind of trust that translates into long-term deposit relationships. That accumulated knowledge has shaped every dimension of his approach to the role.
His strategic vision for the Deposit Management Retail department is centered on sustainable growth, a phrase that in his hands carries specific meaning. It is not about short-term volume targets achieved through aggressive campaigns that do not build lasting customer relationships. It is about developing the right products, the right customer engagement models, and the right internal culture to grow a retail deposit base that is stable, diversified, and genuinely reflective of the bank’s relationship with its customers over time.
In practice, this has meant working across a wide range of the bank’s functions simultaneously. Bikram collaborates closely with the priority banking division, the digital banking team, the Management Committee, and external stakeholders to ensure that the department’s deposit growth strategy is aligned with the bank’s broader institutional direction and adequately supported by the operational infrastructure and relationship management capabilities it requires.
One of his priorities since taking on the role has been the development and launch of innovative deposit products that meet the evolving needs of Sanima Bank’s retail customer base. Nepal’s banking sector is increasingly competitive, and customer expectations around the convenience, flexibility, and value of deposit products have risen significantly in recent years. Bikram has led the department’s efforts to respond to those changing expectations with products and services that offer genuine value and that are accessible through the digital channels that a growing proportion of the bank’s customers now prefer.
The results of this strategic focus have been measurable and encouraging. CASA deposits, which encompass Current Account and Savings Account balances and represent one of the most important indicators of a bank’s retail engagement and cost of funds position, grew from approximately 33 percent of the bank’s deposit mix in the period before Bikram took the role to approximately 37 percent by mid-January 2025. That shift in deposit composition reflects not just volume growth but a meaningful improvement in the quality and stability of the bank’s funding base, with direct positive implications for the bank’s overall profitability and its capacity to extend credit at competitive rates.
Beyond the strategic and product dimensions of the role, Bikram has invested significantly in building the operational excellence and risk management discipline that a high-performing deposit management function requires. He monitors deposit movements with close attention, sets ambitious but realistic targets for the team, and has worked to cultivate a high-performance culture within the department that combines commercial ambition with the compliance discipline and customer-first orientation that responsible banking demands.
His analytical skills, developed across decades of work in both digital banking and internet governance, have proven directly applicable to the challenges of deposit management. Understanding customer behavior at scale, identifying the leading indicators of deposit growth or attrition, and making data-informed decisions about product design and marketing strategy are capabilities that Bikram brings to the role with genuine depth and practical experience.
Key Achievements in This Role
CASA deposit ratio increased from approximately 33 percent to approximately 37 percent between the year prior to his appointment and mid-January 2025, reflecting a meaningful improvement in the bank’s retail deposit composition and funding quality.
Led the development and launch of innovative retail deposit products designed to meet the evolving needs and expectations of Sanima Bank’s growing customer base.
Built and sustained collaborative working relationships across priority banking, digital banking, and the Management Committee to align the department’s growth strategy with the bank’s institutional direction.
Established a high-performance culture within the Deposit Management Retail department, combining commercial ambition with rigorous compliance and customer service standards.
Enhanced the department’s contribution to the overall profitability of the bank through improved deposit composition and more effective retail engagement strategies.
Head of Digital Banking
May 2014 to November 2024 | Kathmandu, Nepal
Before taking on his current role in deposit management, Bikram spent more than a decade as Head of Digital Banking at Sanima Bank, a tenure that coincided with one of the most transformative periods in the history of Nepal’s financial technology sector. During those ten years, he was responsible for building, managing, and continuously developing the bank’s entire suite of digital banking products and services, including its ATM network, internet banking platform, mobile banking application, and debit and credit card operations.
When Bikram took on the Head of Digital Banking role in 2014, Nepal’s digital banking landscape was still in a relatively early stage of development. Smartphone penetration was growing but still limited. Mobile banking was a concept that most customers had not yet experienced. The infrastructure for digital payments, from point-of-sale terminals to secure payment gateways, was patchy and inconsistent. Regulatory frameworks around digital financial services were still evolving. The opportunity was significant but so were the challenges.
Over the decade that followed, Bikram led Sanima Bank through a period of sustained digital transformation that touched every aspect of the bank’s customer-facing and back-office operations. He managed the bank’s e-banking payment systems with a focus on reliability, security, and user experience, understanding that customer trust in digital banking is fragile and hard-won, and that every system failure or security incident has the potential to set back adoption in ways that take years to recover from.
His approach to building Sanima Bank’s digital banking capability was shaped by the same philosophy that has guided his work in internet governance: that technology serves people, not the other way around. The question he consistently asked in designing and deploying digital banking products was not what is technically possible but what actually makes a meaningful difference to the customer’s experience of managing their money and accessing financial services.
That customer-centered philosophy produced several outcomes that stand out as particularly significant across the decade of his digital banking leadership.
Building the Digital Infrastructure
Bikram oversaw the development and deployment of the full range of digital banking channels that Sanima Bank’s customers now rely on, including its internet banking platform, mobile banking application, ATM network, and card services. He managed the bank’s relationships with major international card networks including VISA and Mastercard, ensuring that Sanima Bank’s card products met international standards for security and functionality while remaining accessible and relevant to Nepali customers at different income levels and in different geographic locations.
His management of these partnerships required both technical sophistication and commercial acumen. Negotiating and maintaining agreements with global card networks involves navigating complex compliance requirements, service level commitments, and technical integration specifications. Bikram’s ability to manage those relationships effectively while also driving the commercial performance of the bank’s card and digital payment products was a significant contributor to the growth of Sanima Bank’s digital banking business across his tenure.
Branchless Banking and Financial Inclusion
One of the contributions Bikram is most proud of from his digital banking tenure is his work on branchless banking and mobile platforms designed to bring financial services to customers who do not live near a bank branch and who may not have previously had access to formal financial services at all.
This work connects directly to his broader commitment to digital inclusion, which runs through his internet governance advocacy and his community development work. Just as he has spent 25 years working to ensure that the internet reaches communities that are geographically or economically marginalized, he has applied the same commitment to financial services through his digital banking work at Sanima Bank. Mobile banking platforms and branchless banking services are not just convenient alternatives to branch banking for existing customers. They are pathways into the formal financial system for people who were previously excluded from it, and they have the potential to change lives in ways that extend far beyond the convenience of checking an account balance on a phone.
Information Security Leadership
In May 2015, Bikram was appointed as Sanima Bank’s Information Security Officer, adding a critical dimension of responsibility to his digital banking leadership role. In that capacity, he was responsible for developing and implementing the bank’s cybersecurity framework, overseeing vulnerability assessment and penetration testing, monitoring security incidents, and ensuring that the bank’s digital infrastructure met the regulatory and operational security standards required by the Nepal Rastra Bank and international best practices.
His appointment as Information Security Officer was a natural extension of the expertise he had been developing simultaneously in the internet governance space, where cybersecurity had become one of his most consistent advocacy priorities. The skills and knowledge he brought to ICANN forums on cybersecurity for developing nations were directly applicable to the challenge of protecting a growing digital banking operation against an increasingly sophisticated and rapidly evolving threat landscape.
Under his information security leadership, Sanima Bank developed a cyber resilience strategy that combined technical controls with staff awareness programs, operational procedures, and incident response capabilities. His approach reflected a conviction he has expressed consistently across both his banking and internet governance work: that effective cybersecurity is not primarily a technical problem. It is a governance and culture problem, and addressing it requires changing how people think and behave, not just deploying better technology.
Generating Digital Revenue and Driving Commercial Performance
Alongside the infrastructure and security dimensions of his digital banking role, Bikram was consistently focused on the commercial performance of the bank’s digital banking portfolio. He was responsible for generating non-interest income through digital banking products and services, achieving significant revenue targets through the bank’s card business, payment services, and digital fee income streams.
His ability to hold both the technical and commercial dimensions of digital banking leadership simultaneously, to build systems that are secure and reliable while also designing products and campaigns that drive revenue and customer engagement, is one of the qualities that made his decade as Head of Digital Banking so productive for Sanima Bank.
Key Achievements in This Role
Led the development and operation of Sanima Bank’s full suite of digital banking products and services across more than a decade of rapid transformation in Nepal’s financial technology sector.
Established and managed the bank’s relationships with major international card networks including VISA and Mastercard, ensuring compliance and seamless transaction experiences for Sanima Bank customers.
Developed and deployed branchless banking and mobile banking platforms that expanded access to financial services for customers outside of urban areas and traditional branch banking reach.
Served as Information Security Officer from May 2015, developing the bank’s cybersecurity framework, overseeing VAPT programs, and building a cyber resilience strategy aligned with regulatory requirements and international best practices.
Generated significant non-interest income through the bank’s digital banking portfolio, contributing meaningfully to the bank’s overall revenue performance across the digital banking era.
Built and led a high-performing digital banking team capable of managing complex, multi-channel banking operations at scale while maintaining the security and reliability standards that customer trust requires.
The Thread That Connects Both Roles
Looking across Bikram’s full tenure at Sanima Bank, from his decade leading digital banking to his current leadership of retail deposit management, a consistent thread runs through everything he has done.
He builds for the long term. The digital banking infrastructure he spent ten years building did not just serve Sanima Bank’s customers in the short term. It created the foundation on which the bank’s retail deposit growth strategy now rests. Customers who adopted mobile banking, who used the bank’s digital payment services, who experienced the bank as a reliable and secure presence in their digital financial lives, these are the customers who are now deepening their relationship with Sanima Bank through the retail deposit products that Bikram’s current team is developing and promoting.
He keeps the customer at the center. Whether he is designing a cybersecurity framework or launching a new deposit product, his starting point is always the person who will ultimately be affected by the decision. That orientation has shaped the culture of the teams he has led and the products and systems those teams have built.
And he connects the institutional and the human. Sanima Bank is a commercial institution with financial targets, regulatory requirements, and competitive pressures. Bikram navigates all of those realities with skill and seriousness. But he also brings to his banking work the same conviction that animates his internet governance advocacy: that the true measure of success is whether the people being served are genuinely better off. At its best, that is what banking is for, just as at its best, that is what the internet is for.
Bikram Shrestha’s contribution to Sanima Bank across more than a decade of leadership represents one of the most significant chapters of a career that has consistently operated at the intersection of technology, policy, and human impact. He has helped build a digital banking operation that serves hundreds of thousands of Nepali customers reliably and securely. He has led a retail deposit strategy that is strengthening the bank’s financial foundations and expanding its reach. And he has done all of this while simultaneously carrying Nepal’s voice into the international forums where the future of the internet and the digital economy is being shaped.
That combination of contributions is rare. And it reflects something important about who Bikram Shrestha is as a professional and as a leader: someone who does not separate the work of building institutions from the work of building communities, because he understands that at their best, the two are the same thing.