PMB UNVEILS E- NAIRA, AS CBN INTEGRATES 33 BANKS
Oru Leonard
President Muhammadu Buhari has unveiled the Nigerian Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), known as the eNaira
The official unveiling of the eNaira which is meant to complement Nigeria’s physical currency, took place at the State House in Abuja on Monday.
Speaking, the Central Bank of Nigeria said it integrated 33 Banks into the eNaira platform with N500m successfully iissued by the apex bank for the take off of the digital currency programme.
Emefiele said the launch of the eNaira is a culmination of several years of research work by the Central Bank of Nigeria in advancing the boundaries of payments system in order to make financial transactions easier and seamless for every strata of the society.
He said following series of engagements with relevant stakeholders including the banking community, fintech operators, merchants and a cross section of Nigerians, the CBN designed the digital currency.
He also said the eNaira marks a major step forward in the evolution of money in Nigeria, noting that since the eNaira platform went live, there has been overwhelming interest and encouraging response from Nigerians and other parties across the world with over 2.5 million daily visits to the website.
He disclosed that so far, N200m has been issued to financial institutions, while over 2,000 customers have been onboarded and over 120 merchants have successfully registered on the eNaira platform.
He said, “Today, customers who download the eNaira Speed Wallet App will be able to onboard and create their wallet; fund their eNaira wallet from their bank account; transfer eNaira from their wallet to another waller; make payment for purchases at registered merchant locations.
“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.
Two applications for using the CBDC – eNaira speed wallet and eNaira merchant wallet – are available for download from the Google and Apple app stores.
In a note before the launch on its website CBN stated that eNaira wallet offers a great way of making purchases with retailers on-site, transferring or sending money while tracking rewards programs.
The statement added that Nigerians can link the e-wallet to their bank account or pay as you go with a prepay option with a promise of an embedded security token system that makes information unreadable to fraudsters as tokens are randomly generated every time you make payment.
