The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele on Tuesday said that the eNaira recorded over 700,000 transactions worth N8bn after one year of its launch. Emefiele said this at the first anniversary of the eNaira launch.
In October last year,
Nigeria became the first African country to introduce a digital currency,
following the launch of the Central Bank of Nigeria eNaira initiative by
President Muhammadu Buhari.
With the launch, Nigeria
joined the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to become the first
jurisdictions in the world to roll out national digital currencies.
The eNaira is expected
to enhance financial inclusion, support poverty reduction, enable direct
welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem,
improve the availability and usability of central bank money, facilitate
diaspora remittances, reduce the cost of processing cash, and reduce cost and
improve the efficiency of cross-border payment among others.
It is also designed to
provide Nigerians with a cheap, safe and trusted means of payment within the
domestic and global economy, he said.
After one year of its
launch, Emefiele said over 3,305 merchants have successfully registered on the
eNaira platform across the country including Shoprite, Sahad Stores, A.A. Rano
fuelling stations, Fraser Suites, November Cubes, among others.
Other
milestones achievement of the eNaira showed that 33 banks have fully integrated
it on their platform, while N3bn has been successfully minted by the Central
Bank, and N2.10bn has been issued to financial institutions.
Emefiele added that
there are over 2.5 million daily visits to the eNaira website.
He said, “We celebrate
the successes achieved so far by the CBN and all Nigerians, it must be
acknowledged that the journey is iterative and today is just another step and
not the destination.
“Therefore, the team
continues to work fastidiously to bring enhanced features and improved user
experience to the eNaira.
“To this end, the
coverage of collaboration was enlarged in a bid to further drive adoption.”
Just like most digital
revolutions, he said the eNaira is a journey that started five years ago,
noting that it is not a one-off event.
Emefiele said the Bank will continue to refine, fine-tune and upgrade it. He said Nigerians should expect to see additional functionalities in the coming months, including, unboarding of revenue collection agencies to increase and simplify collections.
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