Raja Aryal | Chief Marketing Officer, Global IME Bank Ltd.
Raja Aryal joined Global IME Bank in its very early days, almost 19 years ago. During this period, he worked in nearly all areas of the bank, including branch management, credit, recovery, compliance, and finance, predominantly in leadership roles. He has recently been entrusted with the responsibility of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), overseeing the bank’s entire sales and branding functions.
Aryal began his banking career with Nepal Bank Limited immediately after completing his MBA in 2004. He worked there for almost two years before joining Global IME Bank (then Global Bank Limited) in 2007. The HRM Nepal caught up with Aryal to learn about different dimensions of branding and marketing of Global IME Bank. Excerpts are given below.
Q: How is Global IME Bank positioning its brand in the market?
A: Without any doubt Global IME Bank is the largest bank in the country with its footprint in all 77 districts and even abroad with its representative offices in three countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and India. Today’s Global IME Bank is the combination 21 banks and financial institutions through merger and acquisition, including five full-fledged commercial banks. Mergers and acquisitions have their own challenges; however, the bank has been able to leverage this to a large extent thus metamorphosing itself into a large financial institution with a diverse DNA in terms of its business, geographical coverage, experience and human resources.
This unique feature has made Global IME Bank an ‘agile giant’ that is flexible enough to adopt new technologies and innovative banking services to serve its customers. I think the bank has been truly living its vision to be the ‘Bank for All’ as it has positioned itself as the bank that has products and services for everyone irrespective of the demographic, geographic or economic diversity. Global IME Bank has well positioned itself as the market leader in almost all dimensions may it be size, coverage, innovation, services or others. This positioning has been reinforced by the results the bank has been able to achieve in recent years and the national and international recognitions received, including Bank of the Year 2014 by The Banker magazine, Nepal’s best bank for the years 2022, 2024 and 2025 by Euromoney Awards for Excellence, and Best Bank Award, 2024 by Global Finance magazine.
Q: How does Global IME Bank ensure the provision of efficient and effective banking services to its clients?
A: As already stated above, we have placed ourselves as the ‘Bank for All’. With a customer base of more than five million, Global IME Bank has already become the bank of choice. I think, the clients choose us mainly for three practical reasons; wide physical reach for on-the-ground convenience, a robust digital ecosystem for anytime banking, and disciplined risk and good governance practices with highest paid-up capital that protect customer interests. We offer a wide range of product lines that serves all segments of customers like retail, SME, remittance, and corporate clients and we support them with service channels that make onboarding and product use easy and straightforward. We have launched some innovative products and services that are very new to our market. This combination of reach, digital ease and innovation backed by operational discipline makes us the bank of everyone’s choice.
Q: From your experience, what role do digital campaigns, including social media platforms, play in shaping the bank’s brand image?
A: With the fast-changing technology and its wide reach to desired market segments, mainly through social media, digital campaigns have become the most effective medium to communicate or interact with our customers. The bank has been using the digital channels effectively in interacting; I prefer to use the word ‘interact’ rather than just ‘communication’ here because the digital channels allow us to also listen to our existing or potential customers through their feedback, comments, etc.
Hence, digital campaigns play a pivotal role for shaping the bank’s brand image. They mainly do two jobs: build top-of-mind awareness quickly and create measurable engagement funnels that feed into product adoption. This medium is an even more effective means for interacting with the younger generation which is the future economic force of the country.
Q: How can traditional and new platforms be effectively leveraged for stronger brand recognition?
A: Despite the growing popularity of digital platforms/media, mainly due to various benefits discussed earlier, traditional platforms have their own peculiar advantages. The traditional promotional platforms and campaigns like radio/TV commercials and newspaper advertisements are mostly effective to reach a wider segment with a common message, especially when we want to reach a larger mass. On the other hand, digital/social media allows to focus on specific niches, on requirement basis, with relatively low cost. I would say we should use traditional media to communicate with our customers and digital/social media platforms to interact with our customers. A strong integrated media and branding strategy is one that expertly balances digital and traditional platforms. This approach is the most efficient way to maximise branding mileage, which leads directly to stronger brand recognition and a higher degree of market leverage.
Q: How would you like to compare the position of Global IME Bank in the banking industry, in terms of different indicators, such as credit, deposit, NPL, returns (dividend), EPS (earning per share), etc.?
Global IME Bank has grown steadily, through organic expansion and strategic mergers, allowing us to serve a diverse customer base in all 77 districts of the country and abroad. With a strong deposit base, diversified portfolio and growing remittance inflows, the bank holds the leading position in both deposits and credit. Though the NPL level of the entire banking industry has increased sharply in the recent years, Global IME Bank has been able to maintain the NPL level below the threshold of 5% even during these challenging times.
For shareholders, we have consistently delivered earnings and declared dividends, either in cash, bonus shares or both each year. Looking ahead, our goal is not only to remain the largest bank but also to lead the industry through efficiency, innovation and sound corporate governance.
Q: How do you align products with client choices and how much do trust and service quality influence the brand?
A: Product alignment comes with continuous learning and observation. We listen to customers through branch feedback, digital analytics, and surveys and then design solutions for different segments like retail, SME, diaspora, and youth. That’s why we prioritise customer service excellence and have set up a dedicated unit to oversee Global Connect (customer service centre), customer surveys, and mystery shopping.
Trust and service quality are the foundation of any bank’s brand. Customers may choose us for products, but they stay with us because of reliable service, transparent dealings, and consistent support. Strong trust builds loyalty, which ultimately strengthens the brand.
Q: Have mergers and acquisitions strengthened Global IME’s brand and market positioning?
A: Yes, mergers and acquisitions have been key to strengthening Global IME Bank’s brand and market presence. Every merger has helped us grow our network, customer base, and product range; thereby giving us benefit of economies of scale to serve a large customer base with better efficiency. Despite its own challenges, mergers and acquisitions have helped us build ourselves as a strong financial institution which has a strong base and a wide network powered by a good HR base. Our success story, especially in this area has proven how any organisation can be a melting pot of diverse cultures through a well-planned cultural alignment after mergers/acquisitions.
I do not want to undermine the contribution of organic growth in sustainable growth of any institution, however, there is no doubt various strategic merger decisions along with subsequent alignment in various areas in the past few years have served as the strong foundation of Global IME Bank.
Q: How does regulatory compliance, such as access to finance/financial inclusion, and transparency contribute to the branding of commercial banks in Nepal?
A: Banks and financial institutions are the most regulated institutions in the country today. Regulatory compliance and transparency are critical reputational assets. In Nepal’s context, adherence to NRB directives and other regulatory requirements, clear financial disclosures, and programmes supporting financial inclusion signal that a bank is trustworthy and institutionally sound. For customers and corporates, that reduces perceived risk and for investors and regulators, it demonstrates good corporate governance. In short, compliance and transparency are both risk management and marketing tool and they protect the brand and can be communicated as proof points of reliability.
Q: Digital innovations have transformed the banking business model. What opportunities and challenges do you foresee with the rise of disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence in product design and customer outreach?
A: The recent AI revolution backed by fast-changing technology has completely changed the global banking landscape. This development brings both opportunities and challenges for the banking industry. On the positive side, it helps us personalise services, detect fraud faster, speed up loan processing, recommend the right products, and support customers through chatbots and virtual assistants. Just to let you know, Global IME Bank, has already introduced several AI-driven services and we are working on various dimensions for the extensive use of the latest digital technology and AI to make banking safer and convenient for our customers.
At the same time, we remain cautious about data privacy, regulatory concerns and the importance of keeping a human touch in finance. For us, AI is not just a tool but a strategic enabler and we believe the future belongs to banks that embrace these developments responsibly with transparency and good governance.
Q: What strategies do you adopt to maximise the impact of events and sponsorships in promoting the bank’s brand?
A: We treat every event and sponsorship as our own initiative, going beyond just putting up a logo. From creating pre-event buzz on social media to aligning messages with our brand values, we make sure our presence adds real value. During events, we engage customers directly and raise product awareness, while our content team captures authentic moments for future use. Afterward, we share highlights, track outcomes, and use the learnings to improve future campaigns. For us, events are not just about visibility, but about building lasting connections, trust, and keeping our brand top of the mind.
Q: Could you share any unique product or branding and marketing initiatives you have introduced that became highly popular among clients?
A: We’ve introduced several first-of-its-kind initiatives in Nepal’s banking industry. For example, our podcast series made financial literacy more relatable, our AI/ML Hackathon engaged youth and positioned us as a forward-looking bank. We also introduced ‘Meri Unilai’ fixed deposit scheme, promoting women’s financial independence, which has even gained international recognition.
On the sustainability front, we’ve launched Green Auto, Home, and Solar Loans, set up EV charging stations, solar panels, and rainwater harvesting in branches, while also running initiatives like tree plantation (planted over 18,000 trees last year), upcycling old jeans into school bags, and ‘haatbazar’ to support green entrepreneurs.
Digitally, GlobalSmart+, our mobile banking app is among the most popular banking apps in the country, especially among youth. The bank has recently introduced some unique and innovative features in its app, that include goal-based savings with a round up feature. This goal-based savings with round up feature enables customers to set financial goals, save systematically and review/accelerate progress digitally, without requiring branch visits. Likewise, the Global Junior App, has been helping children build financial and digital skills under parental guidance and the feedback has been excellent so far.
We have also created the ‘Digital Universe’ at Kamaladi for 24/7 self-service banking where the customers can avail all kinds of banking services with ease at their convenience.
