Global IME Bank Limited (NEPSE: GBIME) — Company Deep Dive

The One-Paragraph Summary

Global IME Bank Limited (NEPSE: GBIME) is Nepal's largest commercial bank by balance sheet, with total assets of NPR 820.77 billion at the FY2082/83 year-end (Ashadh-end 2083 / mid-July 2026, unaudited) and NPR 688.08 billion at the prior FY2024/25 (FY2081/82) year-end. The bank reached this scale primarily through a merger programme that has absorbed 21 banking and financial institutions over roughly a decade (Source: Wikipedia, Global IME Bank Limited — Tertiary, cross-checked against NRB merger announcements), the most significant single step being the Bank of Kathmandu (BOK) merger effective January 2023, which added roughly NPR 166 billion in assets in a single year. In FY2082/83, deposits grew 21.5% to NPR 669.17 billion while loans grew only 7.1% to NPR 439.35 billion — a widening gap that compressed net interest income even as the bank's credit quality improved materially: net NPL fell from roughly 0.95% to 0.59% across the fiscal year and loan-loss provision coverage rose to 120.47%, the highest among Nepal's largest verified commercial banks (Source: GBIME Q1–Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited). All figures in this article are from company-filed primary documents unless otherwise stated; the FY2082/83 figures are the bank's own unaudited, NRB-format provisional annual print and are subject to revision at audit.

Business Description

Global IME Bank Limited is a Class "A" commercial bank incorporated as a public limited company under the Nepal Company Act 2063, licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) under the Bank and Financial Institutions Act (BAFIA 2073) (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2024/25, Note 1.1 — Primary). Registered office: Kamaladi, Kathmandu. Core business: deposit-taking, corporate and retail lending, trade finance, card services, foreign exchange, and digital banking (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2024/25, Note 1.3 — Primary).

Subsidiaries: Global IME Capital Limited (merchant banking), Global IME Laghubitta Bittiya Sanstha Limited (microfinance), and Global IME Securities Limited (stock brokerage, NEPSE Broker No. 89). Associates include Mero Microfinance, First Microfinance Development Bank, RSDC Laghubitta, Chhimmek Laghubitta, and several others (Source: GBIME Q3 FY2082/83 Interim Statements, Note 8 — Primary).

Scale at FY2082/83 year-end (Bank standalone, unaudited): total assets NPR 820.77 billion; customer deposits NPR 669.17 billion; loans and advances NPR 439.35 billion; total equity NPR 69.81 billion (Source: GBIME Q4/Annual FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited). The bank reports being the first commercial bank present in all 77 districts of Nepal (2022) and the first to cross NPR 500 billion in deposits (2024) (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2023/24 — company self-reported).

Merger history

Global IME Bank is the product of the merger or acquisition of 21 banking and financial institutions — five Class "A" commercial banks, ten Class "B" development banks, and six Class "C" finance companies — assembled over roughly a decade (Source: Wikipedia, Global IME Bank Limited — Tertiary, reconciled against NRB merger-approval announcements via ShareSansar and Nepali financial press — Secondary). The two transactions with the largest balance-sheet impact were Janata Bank Nepal (December 2019, roughly doubling deposits from approximately NPR 124 billion to NPR 227 billion) and Bank of Kathmandu (January 2023, adding approximately NPR 166 billion in total assets and NPR 149 billion in deposits, a 54% jump, in the year of the merger) (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2022/23, merger disclosures — Primary).

Governance snapshot

Chairman: Chandra Prasad Dhakal, representing IME Investment Pvt. Ltd. CEO: Surendra Raj Regmi, effective from Bhadra 2081 (approximately August 2024), succeeding Ratna Raj Bajracharya; the reason for the transition is not disclosed in available sources. Promoter/public ownership split: approximately 51.24% / 48.76% (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2024/25 and FY2082/83 interim disclosures — Primary). The ultimate beneficial owners behind the promoter investment vehicles (IME Investment Pvt. Ltd. and DDIG Investment Pvt. Ltd.) are not disclosed in the annual report sections reviewed.

Auditor. PYC & Associates and P.J.P.N. & Co. (a four-plus-year joint audit arrangement) were replaced by S.A.R. Associates (single firm) for FY2024/25 (FY2081/82), the same year the bank adopted the full Expected Credit Loss (ECL) accounting model. S.A.R. Associates is also the current auditor of NMB Bank and was a joint auditor of Nabil Bank in prior years, which is consistent with routine audit-rotation practice among large Nepali banks rather than an idiosyncratic change (Source: GBIME, NMB, and Nabil Bank verified financial files and annual reports — Primary/cross-referenced). The text of the audit opinion itself was not located in the extracted annual report sections for any of the five years reviewed, so an unqualified opinion cannot be independently confirmed, though no qualification has been identified either.

Financial Performance

All figures in NPR millions, Bank standalone, unless noted. FY2079/80 is BOK-merger-inflated (the merger closed mid-year, adding approximately NPR 166 billion in assets and NPR 149 billion in deposits in a single year; prior-year comparatives were not restated). FY2081/82 was the first full year of NFRS 9 Expected Credit Loss (ECL) accounting, which is not directly comparable to the prior "incurred loss" methodology. FY2082/83 figures are unaudited (company-filed, NRB-format provisional annual print).

Source: GBIME Annual Reports FY2020/21–FY2024/25 (audited) and GBIME Q1–Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements (unaudited) — all company self-reported, accessible via SEBON/company website.

The five-year pattern: total assets grew 2.4× (NPR 345 billion to NPR 821 billion) while EPS fell from NPR 19.25 to NPR 16.34 and reported ROE fell from 13.4% to 9.1%. Scale increased; per-share earning power did not keep pace.

The FY2082/83 profit recovery (+22.7% YoY, +NPR 1,151 million) did not come from lending. Net interest income actually fell NPR 477 million year-on-year. The recovery came instead from a lower impairment charge (+NPR 1,189 million pre-tax benefit versus FY2081/82), higher fee income (+NPR 419 million), a trading/FX gain (+NPR 387 million), and a larger deferred-tax credit (NPR 889 million versus NPR 458 million the prior year). Pre-provision operating profit rose only about 2.0% year-on-year (Source: GBIME Q4/Annual FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements, derived from total operating income less operating expenses — Primary, unaudited). This was primarily a provision-normalization and non-core-income year rather than an operating-earnings breakout.

Quarterly Snapshot — FY2082/83 (unaudited)

Bank-level figures (Source: GBIME Q1–Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited).

Credit quality improved steadily through the year. Net NPL — gross non-performing loans less provisions, as a percentage of loans — fell from 0.95% to 0.59% across the four quarters, and loan-loss provision coverage rose from 109.6% to 120.47%, meaning reserves now exceed the gross NPL balance by roughly a fifth. Gross NPL itself stayed range-bound around 4.9–5.0% throughout the year, so the improvement is specifically in reserve coverage rather than in the headline NPL ratio declining (Source: GBIME Q1–Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited).

Loan growth stalled in the second half while deposits surged. Loans grew from NPR 439.04 billion (Q3) to NPR 439.35 billion (Q4) — a 0.07% increase — while deposits grew from NPR 626.00 billion to NPR 669.17 billion, an increase of roughly NPR 43 billion in the fourth quarter alone. Essentially all of the fourth-quarter deposit inflow was placed in cash and investment securities rather than lent out (Source: GBIME Q3 and Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited).

Balance Sheet & Capital

Source: GBIME Annual Reports and Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary.

Over a third of the balance sheet sits in cash and investment securities. Cash plus investment securities totaled NPR 290.1 billion, or 35.3% of total assets, at FY2082/83 year-end — up from 34.7% a year earlier and roughly 25% in FY2078/79. The simple loan-to-deposit ratio was 65.7%, and the NRB-basis credit-to-deposit ratio was 68.43%, both the lowest in the five-year window reviewed and below a sector figure of approximately 74.3% cited by industry desks (Source: GBIME Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements, NRB ratios table — Primary, unaudited).

Capital adequacy is the tightest constraint. CAR stood at 12.10% at FY2082/83 year-end, with a Tier 1 ratio of 10.04%, against an NRB minimum CAR of 11% — a buffer of roughly 110 basis points, the narrowest in the five-year record. GBIME has not issued fresh Tier 2 debentures or preference shares in this period; debt securities issued remained flat at approximately NPR 10.7 billion (Source: GBIME Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements and NRB ratios table — Primary, unaudited).

Market Position & Competitive Landscape

GBIME is, by total assets and total deposits, Nepal's largest commercial bank, having surpassed Nabil Bank following the Bank of Kathmandu merger (Source: GBIME and Nabil Bank Annual Reports FY2024/25 — Primary). From the bank's own disclosed historical performance table for FY2080/81:

Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2023/24, Historical Performance Highlights — Primary. The gap between GBIME's deposit-balance share (8.8%) and deposit-customer share (10.7%) indicates a retail, mass-market deposit base spread across all 77 districts at smaller average balances — a genuine distribution footprint that took roughly two decades and multiple mergers to assemble.

Funding cost is a strength, not a weakness. GBIME's CASA (current and savings account) ratio was 41.01% in FY2076/77, dipped to as low as 35.34% following the BOK merger (which brought in institutional term deposits), and recovered to 38.85% by FY2080/81 — in line with Nabil Bank's 36.82% and NMB Bank's 38.50% for the same year (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2023/24, Historical Performance Highlights — Primary). GBIME's FY2082/83 cost of funds of 3.43% is below NMB's reported 3.74% for the same period (Source: GBIME and NMB Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary, unaudited). A full CASA breakdown for FY2081/82 and FY2082/83 specifically is not disclosed in the quarterly filings.

Card and digital products are immaterial to date. Credit cards numbered just 18,677 at FY2080/81 year-end, down from 24,385 the prior year, on a NPR 439 billion loan book (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2023/24 — Primary). Co-branded products such as the Global Sky Club card (with Yeti Airlines, launched May 2025) and a Bhatbhateni Supermarket zero-interest EMI facility (announced June 2026) have no separately disclosed transaction volumes or portfolio balances.

Peer comparison. Nabil Bank reported total assets of NPR 636.8 billion, gross NPL of 4.48%, and EPS of NPR 21.89 for FY2024/25 (Source: Nabil Bank Annual Report FY2024/25 — Primary). NIC Asia Bank reported gross NPL of 8.85% (Bank) as of Q3 FY2081/82 (Source: NIC Asia Bank interim report — Primary). On a net-NPL and coverage basis, GBIME's FY2082/83 figures (net NPL 0.59%, coverage 120.47%) compare favorably with these peers, though the comparison uses different fiscal periods and should be read with that caveat.

Regulatory Framework

GBIME operates under BAFIA 2073 and Nepal Rastra Bank's Unified Directives.

Source: GBIME Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements, NRB ratios table; NRB Unified Directives 2081 — Primary.

NFRS 9 / Expected Credit Loss transition. NRB's Expected Credit Loss Related Guideline (first amendment dated 2082.05.09) required full ECL adoption from FY2081/82, GBIME's first full year under the new framework; impairment is recognized as the higher of the ECL calculation or NRB's provisioning norms under the Unified Directives (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2024/25, Key Audit Matters — Primary). The elevated FY2081/82 impairment charge (NPR 5,977 million) and the subsequent partial normalization in FY2082/83 (NPR 4,788 million) both reflect this transition and are not directly comparable to the pre-ECL "incurred loss" years.

Interest rate spread cap. NRB's 4.4% spread ceiling means GBIME cannot out-price competitors for the same loan; its own spread of 3.29% in FY2082/83 reflects both the regulatory cap and the bank's own asset mix (a large low-yield cash and securities position).

Governance & Related-Party Transactions

Source: GBIME Annual Reports FY2080/81 and FY2081/82, Related Party Disclosure notes — Primary. Chairman Dhakal is also associated with the broader IME Group, a remittance, travel, and capital-markets ecosystem that transacts with the bank, including foreign-currency purchases of approximately NPR 36.5 billion equivalent through IME Limited in FY2081/82 (Source: GBIME Annual Report FY2024/25 — Primary). Individually, none of the disclosed related-party line items is large relative to the bank's balance sheet, and CEO and board compensation are modest for an institution of this scale; the IME Travels line did grow approximately 31% year-on-year, which is worth continued monitoring given the broader ecosystem relationship.

Dividend policy shift. GBIME paid no cash dividend during FY2081/82 itself; an 8% cash dividend (NPR 3,049 million) relating to FY2081/82 earnings was approved at the November 2025 AGM and paid during Q2 FY2082/83, with zero bonus shares — a change from the bank's earlier pattern of bonus-heavy distributions (10% bonus on FY2020/21 profits, roughly 3% and 1% bonus in the two years that followed) (Source: GBIME Annual Reports and Q2 FY2082/83 Interim Statements — Primary). The shift toward cash distribution over bonus shares avoids further diluting earnings per share against a slow-growing earnings base.

Retained capital has funded scale rather than per-share value growth. Across FY2077/78 through FY2082/83, GBIME retained the large majority of approximately NPR 31 billion in cumulative earnings (with only around NPR 8.5 billion paid out as dividends across the period) and grew its balance sheet 2.4×. Over the same period, NAVPS rose from NPR 151.26 to NPR 183.14 (approximately 3.9% per year) while EPS fell from NPR 19.25 to NPR 16.34 (Source: GBIME Annual Reports and Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements — Primary). Retained earnings plus merger-issued equity produced a larger bank without a proportional increase in per-share earning power.

Distributable profit. The year-end distributable profit balance stood at NPR 4,581 million at FY2082/83 year-end (up from NPR 4,055 million the prior year), implying an annualized distributable EPS of approximately NPR 12.02, comfortably above what another 8% cash dividend would require (Source: GBIME Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements, Statement of Distributable Profit — Primary, unaudited).

What Is Not Disclosed

1. CASA breakdown for FY2081/82 and FY2082/83 specifically. The company's own disclosed CASA series stops at FY2080/81 (38.85%); the current-year mix between savings, current, and term deposits is not published in the quarterly filings.
2. Restructured or Circular-19 loan balances. The condensed quarterly statements do not disclose any restructured-loan line, making it impossible to assess whether the stable gross NPL ratio reflects genuine credit improvement or regulatory loan rollovers.
3. Loan book composition by sector. GBIME's ECL methodology names seven loan segments (Corporate, Project, Mid-Corporate, SME, Retail, Deprived Sector, Card Loans) but does not disclose the size or NPL rate of each segment, so sector concentration (for example, in real estate or hydropower) cannot be assessed.
4. The split of NPL deterioration between the legacy GBIME loan book and the acquired Bank of Kathmandu book.
5. Ultimate beneficial ownership behind the promoter investment vehicles, IME Investment Pvt. Ltd. and DDIG Investment Pvt. Ltd.
6. The source of a NPR 3.0 billion increase in share capital between the FY2024/25 year-end and Q1 FY2082/83; the mechanism (rights issue, reserve capitalization, or other instrument) is not identified in the quarterly report notes.
7. Audit opinion text for any of the five years reviewed, preventing independent confirmation of an unqualified opinion.
8. Transaction volumes or portfolio balances for the Global Sky Club card and the Bhatbhateni EMI facility.

Analytical Perspectives

The case for the franchise. GBIME's credit quality has genuinely improved: net NPL fell to 0.59% with provision coverage at 120.47%, figures that compare favorably with other large verified Nepali commercial banks. The bank's deposit-customer market share (10.74%) exceeds its deposit-balance share (8.77%), indicating a durable, hard-to-replicate mass-market distribution network across all 77 districts. Fee and commission income has grown steadily (NPR 1.53 billion to NPR 3.64 billion over five years) and is not directly exposed to credit-provisioning swings. Funding costs are competitive with, or below, comparable large banks.

The case for caution. The core structural tension is that GBIME's balance sheet has grown far faster than its per-share earnings: assets rose 2.4× over five years while EPS fell from NPR 19.25 to NPR 16.34 and reported ROE fell from 13.4% to 9.1%. In FY2082/83, a 21.5% increase in deposits was met with only 7.1% loan growth, and net interest income fell despite the deposit inflow — roughly a third of the balance sheet now sits in cash and investment securities earning materially less than loan yields. Capital adequacy, at 12.10% against an 11% floor, leaves limited room to fund a faster loan-growth recovery without raising additional capital. The FY2082/83 figures discussed throughout this profile are unaudited; other Nepali banks have seen material downward revisions to provisional profit figures at audit.

Valuation Context

At the NEPSE closing price of NPR 251.90 (reference date August 12, 2026) and 381,158,526 shares outstanding, GBIME's market capitalization was approximately NPR 96.0 billion (derived). Trailing P/E on the unaudited FY2082/83 EPS of NPR 16.34 was approximately 15.4×; on the audited FY2081/82 EPS of NPR 13.32, approximately 18.9×. Price-to-book was approximately 1.38× on FY2082/83 NAVPS of NPR 183.14. The approved 8% cash dividend implies a dividend yield of roughly 3.2% at this price (Source: GBIME Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements; NEPSE market data — Primary/Secondary).

Reverse-engineering the market price against the bank's own book value implies the market is pricing in a sustainable return on equity somewhat above the 9.13% GBIME reported in FY2082/83 — a level that would be achievable if credit costs continue normalizing from current levels, but closer to double-digit ROE if deposit rates (currently near historic lows) were to rise back toward their more typical multi-year range. Because GBIME's reported ROE has not exceeded roughly 14% at any point in the five years reviewed, and because FY2082/83's profit recovery relied partly on non-recurring items (trading gains, a larger deferred-tax credit) rather than core lending income, readers should treat any earnings-based valuation of GBIME as sensitive to which year's profit, and which components of it, are treated as sustainable.

What We're Watching

1. The loan-growth-versus-deposit-growth gap. GBIME's balance sheet carries roughly NPR 290 billion in cash and investment securities (35% of assets) that could, in principle, fund substantial loan growth within existing capital and liquidity constraints. Whether loan growth begins to exceed deposit growth, and whether the credit-to-deposit ratio turns up from its current 68.43%, is the single clearest signal of whether this capacity is being deployed.
2. Capital adequacy and any Tier 2 or preference-share issuance. At a 110-basis-point buffer above the regulatory minimum, continued balance-sheet growth or any renewed increase in impairment charges would likely require a capital raise; whether and on what terms GBIME issues new Tier 2 instruments is a near-term governance and dilution signal to monitor.
3. The audited FY2082/83 annual report. Confirmation (or revision) of the unaudited profit figures discussed in this profile, particularly the impairment charge and the deferred-tax credit, will determine whether FY2082/83's reported recovery holds at audit.

References

1. Global IME Bank Limited, Annual Reports FY2020/21 through FY2024/25 — audited financial statements, accessible via SEBON/company website. Primary.
2. Global IME Bank Limited, Q1–Q4 FY2082/83 Interim Financial Statements (unaudited, company-filed) — accessible via SEBON/company website. Primary.
3. Nabil Bank Limited, Annual Report FY2024/25 — used for peer comparison, accessible via SEBON/company website. Primary.
4. NIC Asia Bank Limited, Interim Financial Statements Q3 FY2081/82 — used for peer comparison. Primary.
5. Nepal Rastra Bank, Annual Report FY2023/24 and Unified Directives 2081. Primary. nrb.org.np.
6. Nepal Rastra Bank, Expected Credit Loss Related Guideline-2024 (First Amendment, 2082.05.09). Primary. nrb.org.np.
7. Wikipedia, "Global IME Bank Limited" (merger history, 21 institutions). Tertiary, cross-checked against NRB merger-approval announcements reported by ShareSansar and Nepali financial press (Investopaper, Kathmandu Post, myRepublica). Secondary.
8. ShareSansar / NEPSE market data — GBIME share price, shares outstanding, 52-week range. Secondary.

Last updated: August 12, 2026.