How to Accept Online Payments on Your Website in Nepal (eSewa, Khalti, ConnectIPS, Cards)

What payment options can a Nepali website offer?

• eSewa: Nepal's most widely used digital wallet. Buyers pay from their wallet balance or linked bank account.
• Khalti: the other dominant wallet, especially popular with younger urban users.
• ConnectIPS: direct bank-account payment through the national clearing house, useful for larger amounts such as school fees.
• Fonepay and QR payments: bank-app QR payments, common for shops and restaurants.
• Bank card gateways: Nepali banks offer Visa and Mastercard acquiring, which lets international customers pay by card while you settle in NPR.
• Cash on delivery (COD): still expected by many Nepali online shoppers.

How do you integrate a payment gateway step by step?

1. Register as a merchant. You will need your business registration, PAN and bank details. Approval time varies by provider.
2. Get sandbox credentials and build the integration against the test environment first.
3. Create the order on your server before redirecting the customer to pay, so you always know the expected amount.
4. Verify the payment server-side. After the customer returns, confirm the transaction with the provider's API or a signed response. Never trust the browser redirect alone.
5. Handle failures and duplicates. Make order updates idempotent so a repeated callback cannot mark an order twice.
6. Go live only after testing success, failure, cancellation and timeout cases.

Which payment gateway should you choose?

Offer at least two local wallets plus COD if you sell physical goods. Add a bank card gateway if you serve international customers such as tourists, hotels or exporters. Fewer failed checkouts usually matter more than the lowest fee.

What mistakes cause lost or unmatched payments?

• Marking an order paid from the redirect URL without verifying it.
• Storing gateway secrets in front-end code.
• Not logging transaction IDs, which makes reconciliation painful.
• Skipping refunds and partial-payment flows until a customer asks.

WebApp Nepal in Kathmandu builds and secures payment integrations for e-commerce, booking, school-fee and donation platforms. See our payment gateway integration service.