Research · Commercial Banking
Nabil Bank Limited (NABIL)
A full Canon Score walkthrough of Nepal’s oldest continuously operating private commercial bank — net interest margin, credit-to-deposit ratio, capital adequacy and non-performing loans read together, then scored dimension by dimension against sector peers.
Figures are Nabil’s publicly reported numbers as of mid-2025 and the first half of fiscal year 2082/83. Ratios move between disclosures, so treat every number here as correct at that date and re-derive it from current filings before acting. This is published research, not investment advice.
Canon Score: 71 / 100
The Canon Score grades a company across seven dimensions and adds them — never averages them — so the ceiling is always exactly 100. Nabil lands in the Strong band (70–84): a solid long-term holding candidate worth owning with normal monitoring, one rung below Exceptional.
| Dimension | Possible | Awarded |
|---|---|---|
| Financial Strength & Profitability | 20 | 12 |
| Governance & Promoter Behaviour | 15 | 11 |
| Liquidity & Tradability | 10 | 10 |
| Valuation Reasonableness | 15 | 6 |
| Sector & Business Model Durability | 15 | 13 |
| Growth Trajectory | 15 | 10 |
| Dividend & Capital Return Discipline | 10 | 9 |
| Canon Quality Score | 100 | 71 |
What the score is saying
Liquidity is the standout — 10 out of 10
Nabil is one of the more easily tradeable names on the exchange. Average daily turnover of roughly Rs 2.5–2.8 crore clears the rubric’s top volume band comfortably, and a free float near 41.56 percent clears the 40 percent threshold for full marks. For a NEPSE investor this matters more than it would in a deeper market: a company you cannot exit at a fair price when you need to has failed you specifically, however good its fundamentals look.
Valuation is the weakest dimension — 6 out of 15
This is the honest tension in the case. Nabil trades around 19.5–20.5 times trailing earnings against a sector median near 15.5 times, and at a price-to-book of about 2.19 times against a sector median near 1.5 times. Both sit at roughly 1.3–1.5 times the sector, which lands in the rubric’s middle band rather than its top one. A good bank is not automatically a good purchase at today’s price — quality and price are separate questions, and the Canon Score deliberately scores them separately.
Governance is strong but not spotless — 11 out of 15
On the positive side: the oldest continuously operating private commercial bank in Nepal, four decades of political and economic cycles survived, a complex merger completed without a depositor-facing crisis, and a fresh issuer rating commissioned from CARE Ratings Nepal — the kind of voluntary external scrutiny a bank hiding something usually avoids inviting. Set against that: an audited-versus-unaudited revision pattern, an unresolved promoter-share transfer under litigation, and board-independence detail that could not be verified from public filings.
A planned transfer of roughly 17.7 million promoter shares from IFIC Bank of Bangladesh to the Chaudhary Group was sitting under a court stay order at the time of analysis. That is not share pledging — the specific risk the rubric’s first governance check asks about — but it is real uncertainty at the top of the shareholding table, and it costs a point.
Read the full analysis
This page summarises the conclusion. The complete six-lesson walkthrough — every ratio derived, every sub-score justified, and the drift adjustment applied — is Chapter 83 of The Investor’s Canon.
Read Chapter 83 in full How the Canon Score works All research
Independent research published for educational purposes. Not investment advice, not a recommendation to buy or sell, and not a price target. The Canon Score measures business quality and governance — it is explicitly not a prediction of where a share price is headed. Verify every figure against current filings before making any decision.