Nigeria’s digital currency, eNaira has recorded over N4 billion worth of transaction since it was launched 10 months ago.
The transactions were carried out by over 200,000 users.
Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja at the grand finale of the “eNaira Hackathon”.
The hackathon is CBN’s collaborative initiative with the African Fintec Foundry (AFF) aimed at bringing together teams of talented entrepreneurs, developers, designers, solution developers, problem-solvers and ‘code magicians’ from Africa to develop innovative solutions for improved adoption of the eNaira.
Emefiele said since its inauguration on October 25, 2021, the eNaira had reached 840,000 downloads, with about 270,000 active wallets comprising more than 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.
According to him, the digital currency will enhance financial inclusion, support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem and improve availability and usability of central bank money.
Emefiele added that it will also facilitate diaspora remittances, reduce the cost of processing cash, and also reduce cost and improve efficiency of cross-border payment.
The apex bank governor, however, said that the eNaira was the same Naira with far more possibilities.
“The eNaira would give access to financial services to underserved and unbanked segments of the population,” he said.
He said that 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.
”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,” Emefiele said.
