The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) Mr Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that from next week, Nigerians would be able to transact on eNaira wallet through the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data code on mobile phones.
The eNaira is a central bank digital currency backed by law and issued by the CBN as a legal tender. It is the digital form of the Naira used as cash.
In a statement in Abuja at the Grand Finale of the 2022 eNaira Hackathon, Emefiele said Nigerians can easily open an eNaira wallet on any phone of their choice through the designated USSD code, adding that all they need do was to dial*997# from their phones to carry out transactions.
“Nigerians, both banked and unbanked, will be able to open an eNaira wallet and conduct transactions by simply dialling *997 from their 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.
“This will further deepen the integration of the eNaira with the existing national payment infrastructure”.
“The CBN will increase the level of Financial Inclusion in the Country because just like the Naira, the eNaira is expected to be accessible to all Nigerians. And would provide more possibilities to bring in the unbanked into the digital economy”.
Meanwhile, Kingsley Obiora, Deputy Governor of the CBN in his presentation at the occasion said in South Korea, 77per cent no longer use cash to do payment, while in the Philippines it is 30 per cent. In Nigeria too, 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 electronic business and e-business and we have seen the value of e-business grow from 393bn in 2014 to about 2.4 trillion now and so if you look at this movement, you will realize that the central banks in the world are responding to yearnings of citizens which is why citizens in 96 per cent of Central banks in the world are either working on digital currencies or they have done so already.
Why is why the CBN under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele decide we cannot but be the first to this. A lot of central Bank are trying to copy what we have done which is why we are not resting which is the reason we organized the Hackathon to harness ideas, and that is what we are hoping that we will be able to do today to get the private sector who usually are better than the public sector in innovation. We started with over 5,000 applicants and here we are at the grand finale. and it is my hope that we have these ingenious ideas harnessed into the Hackathon that will improve the e-naira.
Also speaking at the event, Mr Daniel Awe, Group manager, Africa Fintech Foundry noted that the central bank has transformed from traditional regulator to a smart regulator. The Hackathon is a platform that bring entrepreneurs. Coders, product managers to solve problems and build new business model. All over the world, there has been disagreement between innovators and regulators because regulators usually look at impact on financial stability as well as impact of those innovators on consumers as well as the risk while the innovators look at the opportunity in their ideas.
However, this CBN is different as it has over the years partnered with innovators that will create job employment and bring value.
At African Fintech Foundry, we are honoured to have worked with CBN, from over 5,000 applications which is the highest application ever on the continent. Subsequently it has been trimmed down to 20 which was a difficult task.
For those who could not make it, never quit and for those who will emerge winners, it is a morale booster to do more.