Emiefele Reveals When Nigerians Will Start Using eNaira With USSD 

In a move to improve the acceptability of the eNaira, the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele, has said that Nigerians can now subscribe to the digital currency using short codes.

Emefiele who revealed this on Thursday during the eNaira Hackathon grand finale in Abuja said digital currency will soon become part of “our lives” and that 8 million users would be the fresh target.

President Muhammadu Buhari launched the eNaira in October last year as Africa’s first Central Bank Digital Currency.

The first phase of the launch was focused on banked users, while the second phase borders around financial inclusion.

The governor said, “As captured in the design paper released, eNaira is a journey, not a one-time event. This hackathon event is a continuation of that journey and the first among many to come given that the future of central banking is inextricably bound in innovation.

“We don’t have a choice but to live with the fact that we are now in a digital economy. In a digital space where the use of cash will dissipate to almost zero and the use of digital currency will increase and will now become part of our lives.

“The second phase of the project has begun and intended to drive financial inclusion by onboarding the unbanked and the underserved users leveraging offline channels. Hence greater success is envisioned for the project with phase two expected to deliver more gains with the target of eight million users based on estimation using the diffusion of innovation model.

“I’m pleased and indeed delighted to inform you all today 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 mobile phones.”

The acceptability of the digital currency has been the issue the apex bank is battling to improve.

The CBN Governor had accused Nigerian banks of frustrating the digital currency.

At the July Monetary Policy Committee meeting, Emefiele had said the apathy from banks stemmed from their inability to make huge revenue from the eNaira project.