eNaira, the digital form of the Nigerian Naira, has recorded N4 billion in transactions since its take-off last year.
Godwin Emefiele, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), revealed this at the Grand Finale of the 2022 eNaira Hackathon held in Abuja on Thursday.
The Hackathon, which is a creative collaboration between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the African Fintech Foundry (AFF), is aimed at bringing together an army of talented developers, designers, coding experts, solution developers, and entrepreneurs all over Africa to create innovative solutions for the acceptance of eNaira.
Since taking off, there has been a record of 840,000 active downloads with 270,000 wallet users, comprising 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.
Emphasizing the importance of the digital currency, he stated that the digital currency would improve financial inclusion, help poverty alleviation, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a strong payments ecosystem, and improve the availability and usability of money.
Godwin said: “The eNaira is the same Naira but with far greater possibilities. eNaira will facilitate diaspora remittances, cut back on the cost of processing cash, and also improve the efficiency of cross-border payment.
“The eNaira will make a positive impact on Nigeria and Nigerians. It was developed to provide Nigerians with a cheap, safe, secure, and trusted means of payment.
“which is unusual, compared to the offline payments channels like agent networks, USSD, wearables, cards, and near-field communication technology.
“The eNaira would give access to financial services to underserved and unbanked segments of the population”.
He stressed that the eNaira-based products and services would expand Nigerians’ engagement in the digital economy and enhance the growth of the promising fintech sector.
The CBN Governor said “Greater success is envisioned for the project with phase two, bordered around financial inclusion, is expected to deliver more gains with a target of about eight million active users based on estimations using the diffusion of innovation model. When we launched the eNaira, we promised to increase the level of financial inclusion in the Country because just like the Naira, the eNaira is expected to be accessible to all Nigerians.
”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 dialing *997 from their phones.”