. eNaira becomes USSD-enabled from next week
The Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, yesterday, said the digital currency, eNaira, has recorded over 200,000 transaction volumes and N4 billion values, respectively since its inauguration in 2021.
The Governor also said the central bank digital currency (CBDC) has seen 270,000 active wallets comprising over 252,000 consumer wallets, and 17,000 merchant wallets.
This is even as effective from next week; Nigerians can now subscribe to the eNaira using unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) code*997# to improve its acceptability.
The Governor disclosed this yesterday in Abuja at the grand finale of the “eNaira Hackathon”, a CBN’s collaborative initiative with the African Fintec Foundry (AFF).
The Hackathon is aimed at bringing together teams of talented entrepreneurs, developers, designers, solution developers, problem-solvers and ‘code magicians’ from Africa to develop innovative solutions for improved adoption of the eNaira.
…the digital currency will also support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem and improve availability and usability of central bank money.
Financial inclusion
The competition was part of efforts by the CBN to drive financial inclusion, facilitate macroeconomic growth and integrate the Nigerian economy into the world-leading economies through innovation and cutting-edge emerging technologies.
Emefiele said: “As captured in the design paper released, eNaira is a journey, not a one-time event. This hackathon event is a continuation of that journey and the first among many to come given that the future of central banking is inextricably bound in innovation.
“We don’t have a choice but to live with the fact that we are now in a digital economy; in a digital space where the use of cash will dissipate to almost zero and the use of digital currency will increase and will now become part of our lives.
“The second phase of the project has begun and intended to drive financial inclusion by onboarding the unbanked and the underserved users leveraging offline channels. Hence greater success is envisioned for the project with phase two expected to deliver more gains with the target of eight million users based on estimation using the diffusion of innovation model.
“I’m pleased and indeed delighted to inform you all today that by next week, Nigerians, both banked and unbanked, will be able to open an eNaira wallet and conduct transactions by simply dialling *997# from their mobile phones.
“Shortly after this, both merchants and consumers with bank accounts can use the NIBSS instant payment NIP to transfer and receive eNaira to any bank account of their choice. This will further deepen the integration of the eNaira with the existing national payment infrastructure.”
He recalled that Nigeria became the first African country to launch a CBDC following the inauguration of the eNaira on October 25, 2021 by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Besides enhancing financial inclusion, he noted that the digital currency will also support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem and improve availability and usability of central bank money.
“The eNaira will also facilitate diaspora remittances, reduce the cost of processing cash, and also reduce cost and improve efficiency of cross-border payment,” he said.
If you look at this movement, you will realise that central banks in the world are responding to the yearnings of citizens. That is why 96% of central banks in the world are either working on digital currencies or they have done so already.
Global financial systems
Earlier, CBN’s Deputy Governor, Economic Policy, Kinsley Obiora, noted that the use of physical cash is gradually getting out of fashion across the globe due to the growth of digital currencies.
He said: “In South Korea, 77% no longer use cash to do payment, while in the Philippines it is 30%. In Nigeria, we are also seeing the same decline in the use of cash, the minting of currencies in the CBN has been reducing in the last couple of years.
“So alongside this reduction in the use of cash has also been an explosion in e-business and we have seen the value of e-business grow from $393 billion in 2014 to about $2.4 trillion now.
“If you look at this movement, you will realise that central banks in the world are responding to the yearnings of citizens. That is why 96% of central banks in the world are either working on digital currencies or they have done so already,” he said.
On his part, the Group Head, AFF, Daniel Awe, said the CBN has transformed from a traditional regulator to a smart regulator.
He said the Hackathon brought together entrepreneurs, coders and product managers together to solve problems and build new business models.
He said: “All over the world, there has been disagreement between innovators and regulators. This is because regulators usually look at impact on financial stability, impact of those innovators on consumers as well as the risk, while the innovators look at the opportunities in their ideas.
“However, this CBN is different as it has over the years partnered with innovators that will create jobs and bring value.”
