President Muhammadu Buhari has finally launched the eNaira platform with over N500m of the currency minted so far.
President Buhari said during the launching on Monday that the digital innovations along with the Central Bank Digital Currency can foster economic growth through better economic activities, increase remittances, improve financial inclusion and make monetary policy more effective.
He said, “Let me note that aside from the global trend to create Digital Currencies, we believe that there are Nigeria-specific benefits that cut across different sectors of and concerns of the economy.”
He added that “The use of CBDCs can help move many more people and businesses from the informal into the formal sector, thereby increasing the tax base of the country.”
While assuring Nigerians of the safety and scalability of the CBDC system, Buhari said the journey to create a digital currency for Nigeria began sometime in 2017.
He said that the “Work intensified over the past several months with several brainstorming exercises, deployment of technical partners and advisers, collaboration with the Ministries of Communication and Digital Economy and its sister agencies like the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), integration of banking software across the country and painstaking tests to ensure the robustness, safety, and scalability of the CBDC System.”
Speaking at the launching, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, described the digital currency as the first in Africa and one of the earliest around the world.
According to the CBN governor, he said, “Mr. President, today you make history, yet again, with the launch of the eNaira – the first in Africa and one of the earliest around the world.
“Mr. President, as you make groundbreaking reforms, there has been continuing debate on the true value of the Naira.
“Rather than worry today on the direction of the exchange rate, let us take a step back and analyze how we got here in the first place.”
Emefiele also disclosed that 33 banks have been fully integrated and live on the platform stating that over 2.5 million people visit the website daily.
The CBN governor also said N200 million has been issued to financial institutions while adding that over 2,000 customers have been onboarded and 120 merchants have successfully registered on the entire platform.
Also, immediately after the launching, Emefiele revealed that “customers who download the eNaira Speed Wallet App will be able to perform the following: onboard and create their wallet; fund their entire wallet from their bank account; transfer eNaira from their wallet to another wallet and make payment for purchases at registered merchant locations.”
He said the CBN, “will continue to refine, fine-tune and upgrade the eNaira” and he assured that “Nigerians should expect to see additional functionalities in the coming months”.
Some of the additional functionalities include accessibility and onboarding of customers without BVN and the use of the eNaira on the phone without the internet to further drive financial inclusion, making Nigeria one of the first countries in the world to deploy the CBDC via USSD on phones without relying on internet connectivity.
Another feature that will be deployed by the eNaira is the “onboarding of revenue collection agencies to increase and simplify collections and the creation of sector-specific tokens to support the Federal Government’s social programs and distribution of targeted welfare schemes in a bid to lift millions out of poverty by 2025”.
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