eNaira: Nigerians to start using USSD code for transactions next week ― Emefiele

Godwin Emefiele, CBN Governor

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has moved to further deepen the integration of the eNaira with the existing national payment infrastructure by both banked and unbanked, as they will be able to open an eNaira wallet and conduct transactions by simply dialling *997 from their phones.

Similarly, in due course, both Merchants and Consumers with bank accounts can use the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) to transfer and receive eNaira to any bank account.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this on Thursday at the Grand Finale of the eNaira Hackathon, held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

“I am pleased to inform you 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 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.

“When we launched the eNaira, we promised to 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”, Mr Emefiele said.

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He explained that the hackathon event is a continuation of the eNaira journey, and the first among many to come given that the future of central banking is inextricably bound to innovation, noting that the event marked another milestone in the journey toward building the future monetary system in the country in response to the emerging trends and developments in the global digital space.

Mr Emefiele stated that in pursuant to achieving its mandate of preserving monetary and financial stability, the CBN is strategic in charting the future of Nigeria’s legal tender, be it in its traditional or digital form as the economy transits to a digital one as well as charting the course for innovation in the financial sector and in the infrastructure underpinning financial markets.

Against this background, the CBN Governor pointed out that the launch of eNaira was timely and strategic in complementing the various diversification and digitisation initiatives of the Federal Government including the launch of the Nigeria Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), the National Broadband Strategy, as well as the introduction of the Start-Up Bill and a host of others.

According to him, the eNaira will make a significant positive difference to Nigeria and Nigerians, stressing that “Specifically, the eNaira is expected to enhance financial inclusion, support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem, improve availability and usability of central bank money, facilitate diaspora remittances, reduce the cost of processing cash, and reduce cost and improve efficiency of cross-border payment among others”.

The CBN Governor added that the eNaira was also developed to provide Nigerians with a cheap, safe and trusted means of payment, noting that unlike offline payments channels like agent networks, USSD, wearables, cards and near-field communication technology, the eNaira would give access to financial services to underserved and unbanked segments of the population.

“Innovative products and services built on the eNaira would enhance Nigerians’ participation in the digital economy and promote further development of a burgeoning Fintech ecosystem.

“In addition, the eNaira platform possesses an innovation layer for products and services to be built with the aim of enhancing Nigerians’ participation in the digital economy and promoting further development of a burgeoning Fintech ecosystem”, Mr Emefiele further stated.

He pointed out that since the launch of the initiative, the eNaira has reached 840,000 downloads, with about 270,000 active wallets comprising over 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.

In addition, he said that the volume and value of transactions on the platform have been remarkable, reaching above 200,000 and N4.0 billion, respectively.

Notwithstanding this appreciable progress, Mr Emefiele added that the second phase of the project has begun and is intended to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users leveraging offline channels.

“Hence, greater success is envisioned for the project with phase two expected to deliver more gains with a target of about 8,000,000 active users based on estimations using the diffusion of innovation model”, he added.

Mr Emefiele said the Hackathon is an initiative that creates a collaborative environment for experts with a diverse set of skills to drive sustained innovation geared towards making the eNaira the pinnacle for digital financial services and the gateway to the Digital Economy.

“It is intended to seek solutions that would: drive financial inclusion, SME growth and the creation of start-ups; facilitate cross-border trades and transfers as well as international remittances and FX exchanges; effective implementation of welfare-inclined government programmes; and enhance efficiency in the interbank market,” Mr Emefiele further stated.

Also speaking at the event, Dr Kingsley Obiora, Deputy Governor of Economic Policy of the CBN said in South Korea, 77 per cent of the citizens 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. 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 393 billion in 2014 to about 2.4 trillion now,” Dr Obiora stated.

Similarly, Daniel Awe, Group Head, Africa Fintech Foundry, one of the partners for eNaira Hackathon event said the CBN has transformed from traditional regulator to a smart regulator, and the Hackathon is a platform that brings entrepreneurs, Coders, product managers to solve problems and build a new business model.

He said that all over the world, there has been disagreement between innovators and regulators because regulators usually look at the 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, Mr Awe stated that the CBN is different as it has over the years partnered with innovators that will create job employment and bring value.

Nigeria was put in a global spotlight last year on October 25, when President Muhammadu Buhari launched the eNaira, making Nigeria the first African country to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

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eNaira: Nigerians to start using USSD code for transactions next week ― Emefiele

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eNaira: Nigerians to start using USSD code for transactions next week ― Emefiele

eNaira: Nigerians to start using USSD code for transactions next week ― Emefiele