NDIC,CBN looking into benefits of Bitcoin —Ibrahim

The Managing Director, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC),Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim,  over the weekend said the commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had set up a committee to look into the trending “digital currency, Bitcoin.

Ibrahim said this at the just concluded 2016 Workshop for Financial Correspondents in Kaduna.

Bitcoin is a new kind of money, a form of digital currency, created and held electronically. No one controls it and the money is not printed, like Naira, Dollars or Euros.

This is even as he said the popular Mavrodi Mundial Movement (MMM), which has inducted many Nigerians into its fold created “dummy” accounts that are difficult to track. As the NDIC boss put it: “It is MMM today, it could be YYY tomorrow.”

Noting that the CBN and the NDIC was disturbed that about  three million Nigerians had joined the scheme as at October 2016, Alhaji Ibrahim emphasised that all hands should be on deck to prevent people from patronising the scheme, which according to him resulted in participants losing between  $50million and $1.5billion in Russia, the country where it originated from.

The theme of the workshop is Economic Recession and the Nigerian Banking Sector: Opportunities, Challenges and the way Forward.

He said NDIC has constituted a committee together with the CBN to have an in debt study of this phenomenal Bitcoin.

“We will look at it’s advantages and disadvantages, what it means for the payment system and what it means for safety and security of customers.

“We will also look at what it means for money laundering, anti corruption, crime and measurement of money/near money instrument for the economy.

“But we need a lot of education to do this and I am calling on you (media) to educate yourselves about all of this so you can educate the public,” he said.

Ibrahim said ‘Bitcoin’ included what is being called block chain technology based products in the market.

He said that a lot of Nigerians had already started patronising Bitcoin, stressing that ‘it had started to creep in and nobody could stop it.

According to him, in Europe and the United States, it had gained currency and some of the leading banks in Europe had also adopted their own versions of Bitcoins.

Some of the central banks have also adopted it and are seriously doing everything possible to bring in the emergence of these invisible products.

He further explained that the owners do not need any central bank; they do not need any physical bank, and that subscribers only know themselves and they give a bit of the Bitcoin and in some countries that can be converted to cash.

“You can make payments with it because it has been recognised and one of the famous ex-chief executive of Barclays PLC, Antony Jenkins, have joined the groups board of directors,”Ibrahim said.

He explained that the financial service industry is not spared in all of this.

On the issue of “MMM”, he said it had been pronounced that it was not recognised and was illegal.

“It is a very serious matter and all hands must be on deck to educate the public against things like this,” he added.

On the current problems regarding the emergence of wonder banks, Ibrahim said NDIC would not relent in calling on Nigerians, educating and sensitising Nigerians on the dangers of patronising wonder banks.

He urged the media to help and continue to educate the public not to in anyway patronise institutions that were not licenced by the Central Bank or insured by the NDIC.

On financial inclusion, he said although the success recorded was not much but there had been improvement in the area of financial inclusion in the country.

“The successes recorded is not much, but it is a good start given the prevailing number if Nigerians excluded financially,

“I think if you check the statistics that has been rolled out you will appreciate that we have recorded tremendous successes in the last three years.

“This is since the introduction of cashless policy and mobile banking to the extent that more Nigerians are getting involved. But we have a very long way to go and it is your responsibility, as journalists, to continue to help educate Nigerians on the advantages of not keeping their money under their pillows and matrasses or in some cases in soak away and ceilings,” the NDIC boss stated.

He assured  that CBN and the banking community are doing everything possible to block all loop holes associated with mobile banking.