eNaira transactions reach N8bn

The eNaira application has so far recorded a total digital transaction value of nearly N8 billion as of the end of October 2022, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

Remember that President Muhammadu Buhari introduced the eNaira on October 25, 2021, with the tagline “Same Naira, More Possibilities,” becoming Nigeria the first nation in Africa and one of the first nations in the world to create an official digital currency.

The CBN’s Director of Information Technology, Hajiya Rakiyat Mohammed, further stated that users of the eNaira platform will continue to experience smooth peer-to-peer transactions at no cost for the time being. She made the announcement on Monday at the Presentation and Unboarding of e-Naira session during the Second Africa Payment Systems Conference in Abuja.

According to Abayomi Oyeleke, the CBN’s deputy director of information technology, Nigerians who invest in the e-naira platform stand to benefit from a number of features, such as real-time transactions on a secure digital wallet with no downtime. She also noted that the project is supported by a very resilient blockchain technology.

According to her, the eNaira was created to increase the number of payment options available in Nigeria and to promote digital financial inclusion with the potential to speed up capital flows, remittances, and intergovernmental and social transfers.

She asserted that the introduction of the eNaira had altered the corporate environment, decreased cash transactions, removed the hazards involved with cash transactions, and expanded the financial horizons available to bank customers in the digital space.

She claims that eNaira also created business opportunities and improved financial inclusion because it allows Nigeria’s numerous unemployed youngsters to take advantage of these opportunities by offering banking services to people in isolated, unbanked, and underbanked regions.

She noted that further financial solutions will soon be added to the eNaira platform. She also suggested that many security measures, including transaction limitations, have been carefully implemented to protect eNaira consumers’ wallets.

“Since its launch, a total of N8 billion, consisting of over 700,000 transactions has passed through the eNaira platform.

“As part of the CBN’s effort to further integrate and broaden the usage of the eNaira, it was assigned an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code, enabling payments by simply dialling *997# on a mobile phone” she said.