The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said about 45% of Nigerian adults do not have a bank account for transactions.

The apex bank also noted that 35.9 per cent of adults are excluded from formal financial services in the country.

The CBN Deputy Governor Operations, Folashadun Adebisi Shonubi, disclosed this while speaking at the official unveiling ceremony of the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) of e-Naira in Kano on Thursday.

Shonubi noted that the initiative will engender financial inclusion in the country.

He said the choice of the USSD as the premium offline channel for the e-Naira was based on an understanding of the peculiarities of Nigeria’s economy where millions operate at informal level.

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Shonubi added that the launch of the USSD code was significant in achieving the objective of the second phase of the e-Naira project to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users leveraging the offline channels.

“Specifically, we are here to launch the e-Naira USSD channel using *997# for onboarding and transactions,” he said.

He added that the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) Instant payment solution would be available before the end of August.

President Muhammadu Buhari launched the e-Naira on October 25, 2021, making Nigeria the first African country to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

According to him, approximately 45 per cent Nigerians do not have bank accounts, while 35.9 per cent are excluded from formal financial services.

The Star