In a bid to promote the use of e-Naira in tertiary institutions across the nation and foster an environment where it is regarded as preferred option, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has partnered with third party agents of the e-Naira to initiate a campaign that promote its utilisation at the University of Abuja.
Joseph Angaye, Deputy Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said the apex bank has recently been engaging with a number of universities, and have virtually gone to all the geo political zones of the country, talking to them about eNaira and on partnership to ensure that eNaira is adopted as a means of financial transactions especially for revenues collection as well as payment .
“I won’t say we are late in coming here. May be we have probably saved the best for the last; eNaira has really evolved from the inauguration of the eNaira by the former president almost two years ago.
“We’ve achieved a number of mile stone, there have been further development in terms of improving the functionality based on Feedback input we have been getting from various stakeholders. We are coming here with alot of experience in implementing it and as you know central bank digital currency is a new concept globally and Nigeria is one of the early adopters of central bank digital currency, and our own as you recall is called the eNaira.
“The eNaira is central bank’s digital currency of Nigeria. I think we are the second country globally to launch it and we have gained a lot of experience and the world is coming to learn from Nigeria and we’ve been very gracious in sharing our experiences. Everyday we are hosting people from the world bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and our sister central banks from across the world they are coming to learn the experiences”, Angaye said.
He highlighted that the eNaira has a lot of benefits, and it is not to replace the Naira, existing payment system infrastructure the country already has, but it was introduced to deepen the financial system especially the payment system, and to address some challenges in the payment system infrastructure to compliment what the country already has.
“We are not introducing it to be a competitor to what the banks are doing or other service providers, but to provide a platform they can leverage to provide more effective services. I am sure some of us have been experiencing some challenges from time to time using the payment system, but eNaira will help to promote financial inclusion, reduce congestion in the infrastructure so that we are not brought down by downtime registering the number of interfaces that it takes to initiate and complete transaction and giving opportunity to provide additional services that are not even available in the Nigeria system like facilitating payment even when there’s no network”, Angaye further explained.
He added that it will reduce leakages when it comes to collection, and reduce stress when in reconciliation of accounting functions.
Prof. Aisha Sani Maikudi Deputy Vice Chancellor (DVC) of the University of Abuja (UniAbuja) said the university was ready to partner with the CBN to educate Nigerians globally, and has a robots virtual learning programme that can help deliver, and can also help develop content education in ways that can improve knowledge and confidence of Nigerians in the eNaira.
The DVC noted that the department of banking and finance in the University would be dedicated to the programme, and the students and staff can serve as agents to the endeavour.
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