Ending a month-long confusion over the future management structure of the troubled Nepal Bank Limited (NBL), both the government and the World Bank (WB) have agreed to handover the NBL management to a group of experts for the next six months, local media reported on Wednesday.

A Ministry of Finance (MoF) official told a leading website, ekantipur.com, that the understanding was reached during a wrap-up meeting with a World Bank delegation headed by Simon Bell, WB's Finance and Private sector manager for the South Asian Region and top MoF officials.

Broadly speaking, the government and the WB delegation have agreed on a "two-option" scheme to run the NBL management for the next six months and have expressed commitment to implement the scheme at the earliest.

As per the first option, the WB will be financing the cost of selecting and hiring a chief executive officer or a chief credit officer for the bank for next six months, said the officer. The experts will be hired under the Financial Sector Reform Support Initiatives of the WB group on individual contracts.

However, if the first option fails to be implemented, the NepalRastra Bank (NRB), the central bank of the country, would be allowed to hire a chief executive officer or a chief credit officer for the bank as per its existing rules and regulations. "In option two, both the foreigners and domestic banking experts will be allowed to apply for the posts," said the officials.

Importantly, both the government and the WB, the major financer of the banking reform project, have also agreed that the management of NBL would be handed over to a professional banking management team selected through a competitive bidding process after the end of the six-month period.