In its drive to get Nigerians accept the digital currency, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is targeting eight million fresh users of eNaira in the country.

CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who disclosed this on Thursday during the Hackathon grand finale in Abuja, said that the eNaira targets both banked and unbanked Nigerians.

Emefiele said that the second phase of eNaira would capture people that can transact using mobile code to leverage offline channel.

“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 governor said.

The CBN boss noted that digital currency will soon become part of “our lives” and that millions of users would be the fresh target.

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

He 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.”

Emefiele said part of his mandate as the apex bank governor is to chart the future of the Nigerian currency and deepen payment system.

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According to him, transactions in eNaria has now hit N4 billion as Nigeria’s digital currency gains wider acceptability and traction.

He said that Nigerians can now subscribe to the digital currency using short codes.

It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari launched the eNaira in October 2021 as Africa’s first Central Bank Digital Currency.

He stated that the eNaira is the same naira with more possibilities and reduce the cost of processing cash.

“Shortly after this, both merchants and consumers with bank accounts can use the NIBSS instant payment NIP to transfer and receive eNaira to any bank account of their choice. This will further deepen the integration of the eNaira with the existing national payment infrastructure,” he added.

Emefiele revealed that the digital currency has reached 840,000 downloads, 270,000 active wallets comprising over 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.

“In addition, the volume and value of transactions on the platform has been remarkable, reaching above 200,000 and N4 billion respectively,” the governor said.

The Star