The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday, unveiled the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code for the eNaira, to promote financial inclusion in the country.
Speaking at the unveiling in Kano, Deputy Governor, Operations, Foladun Shinobi, said the introduction of the code is another milestone in providing digital financial services to Nigerians and enabling their participation in the global digital economy.
He said the eNaira presents an opportunity to offer Nigerians endless possibilities in using financial services, which is captured by the slogan: “Same Naira, More Opportunities”.
Shinobi said: “Today marks a significant milestone towards achieving the objective of the project’s second phase, which is to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users leveraging the offline channels.
“Specifically, we are here to launch the eNaira USSD channel using *997# for onboarding and transactions. The choice of the USSD as the premium offline channel for the eNaira is founded on an understanding of the peculiarities of our economy.
Today marks a significant milestone towards achieving the objective of the project’s second phase, which is to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users leveraging the offline channels.
He stressed the need for the eNaira to be unveiled in terms of reaching out to 150 million Nigerians who own mobile phones.
“Approximately, 45% of adult Nigerians do not have a bank account, while 35.9% are excluded from formal financial services.
“However, around 81% of the adult population in Nigeria (86 million out of 106 million) own mobile phones (EFInA, 2021), in addition, there are about 150 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria (NCC, June 2022).
“Therefore, the eNaira seeks to leverage the huge opportunity mobile telecommunications presents as a distribution channel for the offering of digital financial services to the underserved and unbanked population,” he said.
