eSewa QR

Overview

eSewa QR is the merchant-payment QR surface of eSewa, Nepal's largest and oldest digital wallet, operated by F1Soft International ^{1, 2}. eSewa launched in beta in 2009 and went into full service on 25 January 2010, billing itself as South Asia's first digital wallet ^{1, 2}. By 2024–25 it reports 10 million+ users, 450,000+ merchants, 250,000+ agents, and partnerships with 49+ banks and financial institutions ².

The important structural fact about eSewa QR is which interoperable QR network it rides: eSewa Business QR operates on the Fonepay network — Nepal's largest interoperable QR network, also an F1Soft company — and not on the NRB/NCHL NEPALPAY QR scheme ^{3, 4}. Nepal therefore has two competing interoperable merchant-QR rails — Fonepay (F1Soft) and NEPALPAY QR / Smart QR (NEPALPAY QR, NCHL) — and eSewa sits firmly on the Fonepay side ^{3, 4}. Both rails sit under Nepal Rastra Bank's NepalQR standardisation framework, which is built on EMVCo Merchant-Presented Mode (MPM) ^{NEPALPAY QR, 5}.

Note on scope: this page describes eSewa QR at the EMVCo-MPM / NepalQR family level. eSewa's exact domestic merchant-account-information template GUID (the EMVCo tag identifying an eSewa/Fonepay merchant) is not publicly documented; it is deliberately not invented here. See Technical specification.

History

Background — eSewa and F1Soft ^{1, 2}:

F1Soft International — Nepalese fintech group; eSewa is its flagship consumer wallet, and Fonepay (the QR/payment network eSewa rides) is a sibling F1Soft company.
F1Soft's broader ecosystem is reported at 20 million+ users across its verticals ¹.

2009 — eSewa beta ^{1, 2}:

Released in beta as Nepal's (and South Asia's) first digital wallet.

25 January 2010 — full service launch ²:

eSewa goes into full-fledged operation for bill payments, recharges, transfers, and ticketing.

2022 — NEPALPAY QR launches (NCHL), Fonepay already dominant ^{NEPALPAY QR, 3}:

The NRB/NCHL national interoperable QR (NEPALPAY QR) launches 11 March 2022 as a unifying rail, but eSewa/Fonepay remain on the Fonepay network rather than joining NEPALPAY QR scanning ⁴.

28 August 2025 — Alipay+ on eSewa Business QR (via Fonepay) ³:

Fonepay × Alipay+ launched at The Soaltee Kathmandu; existing eSewa Business QR codes on the Fonepay network are enabled by default for Alipay+ scan-and-pay across 500,000+ eSewa merchants, letting inbound tourists from 11+ countries pay with their home wallets (Alipay, KakaoPay, GCash, Touch 'n Go, AlipayHK, TrueMoney, Tinaba) ³.

Sustained growth ²:

eSewa reports 10 million+ users and 450,000+ merchants by 2024–25, and was recognised by Nepal Rastra Bank for 15 years of operation ².

Technical specification

eSewa QR is a merchant-presented QR on the Fonepay interoperable network, within Nepal Rastra Bank's NepalQR framework, which is based on EMVCo Merchant-Presented Mode (MPM) ^{NEPALPAY QR, 4, 5}. Fonepay describes its QR as EMV compliant ⁷.

EMVCo MPM foundation (NepalQR family) ^{5, NEPALPAY QR}:

Payload format: TLV (Tag-Length-Value) plain-text string. Each field is TT (two-digit tag) + LL (two-digit length) + value.
Payload Format Indicator (tag 00) = "01" — fixed EMVCo MPM v1 marker.
Point of Initiation Method (tag 01) = "11" (static, multi-use) or "12" (dynamic, single-use).
Merchant Account Information templates (tags 26–51): each begins with sub-tag 00 carrying a reverse-DNS GUID; the Fonepay-issued GUID for eSewa Business merchants is not publicly documented ⁷.
Merchant Category Code (tag 52): four-digit ISO 18245 MCC.
Transaction Currency (tag 53): 524 (NPR, ISO 4217 numeric).
Transaction Amount (tag 54): omitted for static codes; numeric for dynamic.
Country Code (tag 58): NP.
Merchant Name (tag 59) and Merchant City (tag 60): max 25 / 15 chars, EMVCo character set.
Additional Data field (tag 62): optional bill/reference/store identifiers.
Integrity (tag 63): CRC-16/CCITT-FALSE computed over the whole payload including 6304 length prefix, polynomial 0x1021, initial value 0xFFFF, no reflection.
Static and dynamic merchant QR both supported ⁶.
Underlying symbology: QR Code (typically L or M error-correction level for printed merchant stickers).

Modes ⁶:

Static merchant QR — generated after merchant login; customer enters the amount in their app.
Dynamic merchant QR — merchant enters amount and remarks; a per-transaction QR is produced.

Network placement ^{3, 4}:

eSewa Business QR is acquired and settled on the Fonepay network (F1Soft), Nepal's largest interoperable QR network.
It is not the NRB/NCHL NEPALPAY QR scheme; eSewa cannot scan NEPALPAY QR or Smart QR codes ⁴.

What the playground demonstrates. The "Try it" panel uses the generic EMVCo MPM encoder parameterised for Nepal — currency 524 (NPR), country NP, city Kathmandu. This produces a valid EMVCo-MPM / NepalQR-family container (correct TLV structure, tag 00 = "01", CRC tag 63). It does not embed eSewa's real domestic merchant-template GUID, because that GUID is not publicly documented — the playground shows the standard's container parameterised for Nepal, the same way the VietQR and NEPALPAY QR playgrounds are parameterised, rather than a production eSewa merchant code.

Use cases

eSewa QR is a primary retail payment surface in Nepal, alongside the wallet's bill-pay and transfer features ^{2, 6}:

Retail point of sale — customers open the eSewa app, tap the QR scanner, scan the merchant's Fonepay QR, and pay; pre-printed merchant QR is ubiquitous ⁶.
Merchant Business QR (static) — printed sticker generated after merchant login ⁶.
Merchant Business QR (dynamic) — POS-generated per-transaction QR with amount and remarks ⁶.
Cross-wallet acceptance via Fonepay — any Fonepay-network app/bank can pay an eSewa Business QR; Fonepay connects 60+ partners, 20M+ customers, 1.2M+ merchants ^{3, 4, 7}.
Inbound tourist payments via Alipay+ — foreign visitors scan eSewa Business QR with Alipay+-connected wallets (live 28 Aug 2025); merchants pay ~1.95% on Alipay+ transactions while domestic eSewa QR is free ³.
Bill payment, recharge, ticketing — eSewa's broader wallet services that sit alongside QR pay ².

Scale ²:

10 million+ users
450,000+ merchants
250,000+ agents
49+ partner banks/FIs

Implementations & ecosystem

Operator: F1Soft International (eSewa wallet) and Fonepay Payment Service (the QR network eSewa rides) — both F1Soft companies ^{3, 4}.

Regulator / standards framework: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) — NepalQR framework; EMVCo for the underlying MPM specification ^{NEPALPAY QR, 5}.

Acceptance network: the Fonepay interoperable QR network — Nepal's largest (NRB-licensed PSO; 60+ partners, 20M+ customers, 1.2M+ merchants), scanned by many bank apps and wallets ^{4, 7}.

Cross-border: Alipay+ on eSewa Business QR (via Fonepay) for inbound tourists, plus a Fonepay × NPCI International UPI link for Indian visitors ^{3, 7}.

Open-source libraries — eSewa QR specifically is not exposed in a public encoder library (the wallet's merchant-template GUID is not documented), but two reasonable starting points exist for the Nepal payment-rail ecosystem:

Repo	Language	Stars	License	Last release	Notes
voidarchive/nepal-payment-go	Go	24	MIT	v1.0.0, Jan 2026	Unified Go SDK covering eSewa (HMAC-SHA256 form-POST), Khalti, ConnectIPS (RSA-SHA256), and Fonepay (HMAC-SHA512 + dynamic QR generation for in-person payments); same interface across providers, payment-verification + callback support ⁸
manibibek/payment-gateways-in-nepal	Markdown index	16	—	active	Curated index of integration resources for eSewa (WooCommerce/Android/iOS plugins), Khalti (Magento/OpenCart/Prestashop/WHMCS/JS/Android/iOS), Fonepay and 9+ other Nepali gateways ⁹

For the underlying EMVCo MPM container (currency 524, country NP, CRC16/CCITT-FALSE), any general EMVCo-MPM library applies once the Fonepay-specific Merchant Account Information sub-tag is known ^{5, 10}:

Repo	Language	Stars	License	Last release	Notes
mvallim/emv-qrcode	Java	128	Apache-2.0	v0.1.5, May 2026	Full MPM v1.1 + CPM v1.1 encode/decode with CRC16 + duplicate-tag checks; covers the wire-level format eSewa rides ¹⁰

eSewa's domestic merchant template not being public limits production round-tripping; in practice merchants integrate through eSewa's Epay/Intent APIs (HMAC-SHA256-signed form POSTs) or Mobile SDKs (Android/iOS/Flutter) and let the wallet operator generate the QR server-side ¹¹.

Note on NEPALPAY QR: NEPALPAY QR scanning is offered by other wallets (CellPay, Hamropay, Moru, SajiloPay, connectIPS) — eSewa is notably absent from that list because it stays on Fonepay ⁴.

Comparison

vs. NEPALPAY QR (NCHL national scheme) — Same country, same NepalQR/EMVCo-MPM family, but a different interoperable rail. NEPALPAY QR is the NRB/NCHL-operated national scheme; eSewa QR runs on the Fonepay network (F1Soft). They are competing interoperability schemes within Nepal, and eSewa cannot scan NEPALPAY QR ^{3, 4}.

vs. VietQR / DuitNow / PromptPay (ASEAN EMVCo-MPM national QR) — Same EMVCo-MPM TLV technical family. The difference is governance: those are single bank-operator national schemes; Nepal's merchant-QR market is split between a private network (Fonepay) and a clearing-house scheme (NEPALPAY QR), with eSewa on the private side ⁵.

vs. UPI QR (India) — Different wire format (UPI deep link vs EMVCo TLV). Nepal-India cross-border QR exists via NPCI International / Fonepay arrangements, reflecting the strong Nepal-India payments corridor NEPALPAY QR.

vs. Khalti / IME Pay (domestic wallet rivals) — eSewa is the largest of Nepal's ~27 licensed wallets; its scale and the Fonepay acceptance footprint are its main moat over rivals ^{2, NEPALPAY QR}. Khalti — founded in 2016 by four engineering students (Amit Agrawal, Arvind Sah, Dhurba Adhikari, Manish Modi) and launched 26 January 2017 under Sparrow Pay Pvt. Ltd. — is the closest direct competitor ¹². The choosing criterion at the wallet layer: eSewa for Fonepay-network domestic acceptance + Alipay+ inbound tourism, Khalti for IME-group remittance + NEPALPAY QR-side acceptance; the QRs settle through different national rails.

vs. closed-loop bank-app wallets (Mahfathati in Yemen, SIB UPI-POS in India) — Bank-wallet QRs in markets without a mandated central QR scheme tend to be closed loops or settle through a single PSP. eSewa is structurally different: it is a wallet that hosts the network (via sibling Fonepay) — 60+ partner banks + wallets scan its merchant QR. The choosing criterion if you are a Nepali merchant: take eSewa Business QR for one sticker that the Fonepay-wallet/bank population pays; take NEPALPAY QR if you want NEPALPAY-only wallets (CellPay, Hamropay, Moru, SajiloPay, connectIPS) — and many merchants display both, because the two rails do not interoperate ⁴.

Fun facts

eSewa and Fonepay are siblings. Both are F1Soft companies, so eSewa's "interoperable" QR is really the Fonepay network — which is also why eSewa sits out the rival NEPALPAY QR scheme ^{3, 4}.
South Asia's first digital wallet — eSewa (2009 beta, 2010 full service) predates most of the region's wallets ^{1, 2}.
eSewa cannot scan NEPALPAY QR. Despite being Nepal's biggest wallet, it is absent from the NEPALPAY QR scanning wallet list because of the Fonepay-vs-NEPALPAY split ⁴.
Alipay+ by default. When Fonepay × Alipay+ launched (28 Aug 2025), every existing eSewa Business QR was switched on for cross-border acceptance automatically — no merchant action, no QR replacement required ³.
The exact eSewa merchant GUID is not public — unlike well-documented schemes, eSewa/Fonepay's domestic EMVCo merchant-template identifier is not openly published, which is why this page (and its playground) stays at the NepalQR/EMVCo-family level.
Nepal's two leading wallets launched 1 day apart, 7 years apart. eSewa entered full service on 25 January 2010 ²; Khalti, its dominant rival, launched on 26 January 2017 ¹² — the late-January-2017 anniversary becoming Khalti's marketing peg as the "second wave" Nepali wallet exactly seven years after the first.
Fonepay-vs-NEPALPAY QR is the rare case of two competing national QR rails in one country. Most countries either have a single mandated national QR (Singapore SGQR, Malaysia DuitNow, Thailand PromptPay, Indonesia QRIS) or a wallet-led ecosystem with no central scheme (Yemen, Lebanon). Nepal runs both simultaneously — Fonepay (F1Soft-private, eSewa rides this) and NEPALPAY QR (NRB/NCHL public) — with merchants commonly displaying both stickers because the two networks do not scan each other ^{3, 4}.
One Alipay+ partnership turned 500,000+ stickers into cross-border-tourist acceptance overnight. The Fonepay × Alipay+ go-live on 28 August 2025 at The Soaltee Kathmandu enabled 11+ Asian wallets (Alipay, KakaoPay, GCash, Touch 'n Go, AlipayHK, TrueMoney, Tinaba and others) on every existing eSewa Business QR with no merchant action required — the merchant didn't even have to re-print the sticker ³.

Status

Active and dominant ^{2, 3, 4}:

eSewa remains Nepal's most widely used wallet (10M+ users, 450K+ merchants).
eSewa QR rides the Fonepay interoperable network; Alipay+ cross-border live since 28 Aug 2025.
The Fonepay-vs-NEPALPAY QR rail split persists; eSewa stays on Fonepay.
No deprecation; eSewa QR is a core, growing payment surface.

Sources

Deployments

Found in the following country reports (grep across reports/countries/):

NP — NP-nepal.md

Deployments

No country reports mention this standard by name.