RBB, NIDC TO MERGE Kathmandu, 6Sept.: The government has made preparations to merge the Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) and Nepal Industrial Development Cooperation (NIDC), RSS reports... Today's [Thursday] meeting of the High Level Financial Coordination Committee directed for making necessary preparations to merge the RBB and NIDC. Chairman of the Committee, Minister for Finance Barshaman Pun directed the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) today itself to make correspondence for necessary arrangement for merger. During the meeting, Minister Pun said the Bank after the merger of the two banks, will become a 'lead bank' of other commercial banks. He added it was necessary to merge the state run banks to strengthen them. The Finance Minister said merger of state run banks will be an encouragement to private banks for merger. The NIDC is the oldest bank of the country and was established in 2016 BS. The RBB was established six years after the establishment of NIDC. The two organisations will be merged within six months, it is learnt. nnnn