A customer says "eSewa is not working" and you have an order waiting. The cause is almost always one of three things: eSewa itself is having trouble, something on the customer's side is blocking them, or your own checkout is sending eSewa something it does not accept. Each has a different fix, and the first job is working out which one you are looking at.
First: is eSewa down for everyone?
Check our live eSewa status page. It checks eSewa's live payment endpoint every few minutes, the same endpoint a website checkout uses to take a payment. If it shows eSewa as not responding, the problem is very likely on eSewa's side, and the quickest fix is usually to wait or offer another way to pay.
If eSewa is answering normally, look first at the customer's account and your integration. The page checks that eSewa's payment system responds, not every payment, so eSewa can still have trouble with some transactions while it shows green. Read on.
When the problem is on the customer's side
These are the usual reasons one customer cannot pay while everyone else can:
- Their eSewa account is not KYC-verified. Unverified accounts are heavily restricted. The customer has to complete KYC in the eSewa app.
- A limit or balance. Daily and monthly limits apply to sending and withdrawing, and the wallet needs enough balance to cover the order. The numbers are in eSewa limits per day and month. A payment to a merchant is limited to the amount you bill, but the customer still needs the money in their wallet.
- Login, MPIN or OTP trouble. A wrong MPIN, an OTP that did not arrive, or a locked account stops the payment before it reaches you. A locked account is for eSewa's support to sort out.
- An old app or a poor connection. Updating the eSewa app, or switching between Wi-Fi and mobile data, is worth trying before anything else.
None of these are yours to fix, but you can help the customer finish the order with another method.
When the problem is your checkout
If every customer fails the same way and eSewa's status is normal, look at your own integration:
- Test settings in live. A live checkout still pointing at eSewa's test environment, or using the test product code
EPAYTEST, fails for real customers. - A signature eSewa rejects. If you changed keys, or changed the order or format of the signed fields, eSewa refuses the payment form.
- Payments that went through but show as unpaid. If customers are charged but your order stays unpaid, your status check is probably asking eSewa about the amount in a different format from the one you sent, which makes eSewa answer
NOT_FOUND.
The eSewa API integration guide covers each of these in detail.
What to tell the customer
The goal is that the customer finishes the order and pays exactly once.
- Ask whether money left their wallet. If it did, do not ask them to pay again. Check the payment's status with eSewa first. A payment can take a little while to confirm, and asking for a second payment creates a refund you will have to make by hand.
- If no money left their wallet, check the first attempt's status before anyone tries again: an attempt can still be finishing. Once eSewa says it failed, was cancelled or was not found, it is safe to try again, or to pay another way.
- Offer another method if your checkout has one: Khalti, or a Fonepay QR that almost any Nepali bank app can scan. A customer whose eSewa is stuck usually has one of those.
- Tell them what happens next if a payment is still unclear: you will confirm it and update the order, and they do not need to do anything.
Giving customers another way to pay
The simplest protection against any single provider having a bad day is a checkout that offers more than one. With PayBridgeNP your customers choose eSewa, Khalti or Fonepay on the same hosted checkout, so a customer who cannot pay with eSewa can pick another method without leaving your order. Each payment settles into your own merchant account with that provider, and the status pages for every provider are public.
Next Steps
- Check live eSewa status, or Khalti and Fonepay.
- Know the numbers: eSewa limits per day and month.
- Fix integration bugs with the eSewa API integration guide.
- Offer eSewa, Khalti and Fonepay together: see how it works.