FAQ
Straight answers, including the unhelpful ones
Where the honest answer is “not yet” or “we cannot say that”, that is what you will find below.
The model
How Khepee actually works
Is Khepee a lender?
No. Khepee is software, operated by Lacspace Corporation Pvt. Ltd. It does not lend, does not accept deposits and does not hold customer funds. Every loan originated through the platform is issued by a partner bank or financial institution licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank, under their licence and their credit policy.
Is Khepee approved or licensed by NRB?
No, and we will not claim otherwise. NRB licenses financial institutions, not software vendors. What is accurate: the platform is engineered to comply with NRB’s digital lending requirements, and loans originated on it are issued by an NRB-licensed partner.
Does Lacspace’s company registration allow lending?
No. A company registration establishes that the company legally exists and may trade as a technology business. Authority to lend comes only from an NRB licence, which is a different instrument from a different regulator. The two do not transfer.
Why not just get your own licence?
Capital. A district-level microfinance licence requires roughly NPR 2 crore in paid-up capital; a national finance company up to NPR 80 crore, plus NRB approval and full prudential compliance. The TSP route is legal today, requires no capital, and leaves us doing the part we are actually good at.
What about peer-to-peer lending?
Not currently permitted in Nepal. NRB has issued a consultative document and a white paper, but no regulation. Khepee does not operate a P2P model. If NRB opens that route — most likely through the regulatory sandbox — the same multi-tenant core would serve it, but we will not run ahead of the regulator.
Could Khepee become independent later?
Architecturally, yes. A tenant in the platform is a lending entity, not specifically a partner bank. If a licence were obtained or a sandbox route opened, that entity becomes another tenant on the same core with nothing rebuilt. That is a design property, not a plan we are announcing.
For institutions
What partners ask
Does this create a new licensing obligation for us?
It should not. You are already licensed to lend, and Khepee is a technology service provider under a service agreement — a procurement and outsourcing question rather than a licensing one. Your compliance team should still review it against NRB’s outsourcing and IT guidance, and we will supply whatever that review needs.
Does money pass through Khepee?
Never, and it structurally cannot. The payment interface has no method that moves funds into a Khepee-controlled account. We construct and record the disbursement instruction; your rails execute it and remain the source of truth.
Can another partner see our data?
No. Every query is pinned to your institution by the signed access token, and a cross-tenant lookup returns “not found” rather than “forbidden” — because a “forbidden” would confirm the record exists. Isolation is verified by tests.
Can Khepee staff see our borrowers?
No. Our super-admin role is deliberately not granted the borrower personal-data permission. Our team can operate the platform, read the audit trail and diagnose faults; they cannot read names, phone numbers, addresses or documents. Support runs on request ids and hashed identifiers.
Can we use our existing KYC or SMS provider?
Usually. Every external capability sits behind an interface, configured per institution. If you already have a provider under contract, implementing against it is normal work rather than an exception.
What happens if we want to leave?
You get a complete structured export of borrowers, applications, schedules and the audit trail, plus transition assistance during the notice period. There is no per-record charge for your own data. We would rather be chosen each year than contractually retained.
Who is liable if something goes wrong?
It is allocated in the service agreement, and we would rather negotiate it precisely up front than discover a gap later. In substance: you remain the lender of record and own the credit decision; we are responsible for the technology performing as specified.
For borrowers
What borrowers should know
Who am I actually borrowing from?
A bank or financial institution licensed by Nepal Rastra Bank. Khepee provides the app and the process; your loan agreement is with that institution, not with Khepee or Lacspace. If it is ever unclear who your lender is, ask — and expect a name.
Will the app read my contacts or track my location?
No. The app does not request access to your contacts, your location or your photo library, and those permissions are explicitly blocked in the app itself. The camera is used only to photograph your identity document and take a verification selfie.
What happens to my citizenship certificate?
It is encrypted before storage with a key held separately from the database, and is never given a public web address. Every time a staff member views your details, that access is recorded with a stated reason. It is kept for as long as the law requires after your loan closes, then no longer.
Can a computer reject my application?
No. The scorecard produces a recommendation; a person at the lending institution makes the decision. A refusal cannot be saved without a written reason, and you may ask the institution for it.
Someone asked for my OTP. Is that normal?
No. Never share your one-time code with anyone, including someone claiming to work for the lender or for Khepee. We will never ask for it. If anyone asks for your code, or for a fee before disbursement, stop and report it.
How do I complain?
Start with the lending institution — they are your creditor. If the problem is the app or the technology rather than the lending decision, write to grievance@khepee.com. If the institution does not resolve it, Nepal Rastra Bank operates a grievance mechanism for customers of licensed institutions.
The product
Platform and technology
What are the loan limits?
NPR 500,000 for salary and business account holders and NPR 200,000 for other account holders, with a maximum term of 36 months. A partner may configure lower limits for its own products but can never configure higher ones — the ceiling is enforced at four independent layers.
What is the technology stack?
TypeScript throughout. Next.js for the marketing site and operations console, Expo React Native for the borrower app, Node and Express for the API, and MongoDB for the system of record. The regulatory constants and validation schemas are shared across every surface and verified in CI.
Has the platform been penetration tested?
Not yet. An independent test is scheduled before any production borrower data exists. We hold no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification and will not imply otherwise.
What is your uptime?
We have no production traffic yet, so we have no uptime record. Any figure we published now would be an aspiration formatted as a statistic. Availability targets, measurement and remedies belong in the partnership agreement, where they are enforceable.
Is the app available in Nepali?
Yes. Every string in the app lives in a translation file — nothing is hard-coded into a screen. The app follows the device language and lets the borrower override it, and error messages are translated too.
Commercial
Pricing and timing
How much does it cost?
There is no public price list yet, deliberately. Pricing has three components — implementation, platform subscription and usage — and depends on your portfolio and product mix. Launch partners get transparent, cost-based pricing with the calculation shown.
When does Khepee launch?
We are pre-launch and onboarding partner institutions now. The practical first step is a technical and compliance walkthrough, usually schedulable within a week. Live dates depend far more on a partner’s internal approvals than on our engineering.
How long does onboarding take?
Indicatively: a walkthrough in week one, commercial and legal terms over the following weeks, configuration in month two, a controlled pilot in month three. The pace is set by your legal and compliance review, not by configuration.
Do we have to migrate our existing loan book?
No. New originations can run on Khepee while your existing book stays where it is. Requiring a full historical migration before launch is what pushes these projects past a year.
Coming soon
Not answered here?
Ask directly. If the answer is unflattering we will still give it to you.