A few hours after the official website of the upcoming Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) digital currency, enaira.com, went live, it has recorded over one million hits.
This comes one week to the planned launch of the initiative.
The development could pass as a reflection of the level of
interest in the proposed digital currency.
According to information made available on the website,
digital currency will ensure easier financial transactions for users of eNaira.
It offers the opportunity for peer-to-peer payments which allow users to send
money to one another through a linked bank account or card.
In addition, customers are allowed to scan the QR Code on
the website to get started.
A statement on the website reads: “eNaira is a Central Bank
of Nigeria-issued digital currency that provides a unique form of money
denominated in Naira. eNaira serves as both a medium of exchange and a store of
value, offering better payment prospects in retail transactions when compared
to cash payments.
“eNaira has an exclusive operational structure that is both
remarkable and nothing like other forms of central bank money. There are
several benefits from a central bank-issued digital currency in Nigeria, and
this cuts across different sectors of, and concerns of the economy.”
The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, while speaking to a
gathering of foreign investors in New York, recently, had told his audience
that because of activities surrounding the country’s Independence celebration
on October 1, the planned launch of the eNaira would likely be rescheduled to
October 4, 2021.
“The central bank would not want the event to take the shine
away from the Independence celebration,” he said.
“We are going to be the first country in Africa to launch a
digital currency. It is a novel idea because we think it will facilitate trade,
Nigeria being the biggest economy in Africa, this will set the tone to tell
Africa that we are ready to lead and we would indeed lead in trade and we would
make sure that happens.
“Between all central bankers in ECOWAS, we are already
working on a certain collaboration to make trade, payment and banking system
integrate in such a way to set the example on the African Continental Free
Trade Area (AfCFTA),” he added.
The CBN took a major step towards the launch of its digital
currency with its formal announcement of its engagement of global fintech
company, Bitt Inc. as its technical partner for the project.
Emefiele expressed optimism that the eNaira would bring
about increased cross-border trade, accelerate financial inclusion and lead to
cheaper and faster remittance inflow. He said the digital money would lead to
easier targeted social interventions, as well as improvement in monetary policy
effectiveness, payment systems efficiency, and tax collection.
According to him, after its unveiling, Nigerians should be
able to download the eNaira app from either Google plays store or Apple app
store, onboard themselves and fund their eNaira wallet using their bank account
or with cash at a registered agent location.
“If you are a bank customer and you have, say N10 million in
your bank account, for your comfort of spending and making a purchase, you can
tell the bank to load N2 million out of your N10 million into your wallet.
“So, your bank balance in physical cash drops to N8 million,
while your e-wallet carries N2 million. With that, you can make purchases both
within and across the country.
“There is so many variance of the eNaira. But this is where
we would start because we are not going to pretend that there are not risks in
opening your system up. We would look at the various products, determine the
risk, determine the best way to mitigate the risk before we now open it up more
and more,” Emefiele added.
Also shedding more light on Bitts, he said, “We chose them
as a partner. In some other climes where they are, they have their software and
they earn their money. But we chose that they would establish their company in
Nigeria.
The CBN will own substantially stake in that company. It is
a company that will be established in Nigeria and majority holding will be the
CBN."
On his part, the CBN’s Director, Corporate Communications
Department, Osita Nwanisobi, explained that the eNaira project had been a long
and thorough process for the apex bank following its resolve in 2017, to
digitise the local currency after extensive research and exploration.
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