CBN signs up 488,000 eNaira wallets, 78,000 merchants globally
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has onboarded over 488,000 consumer wallets and about 78,000 merchant wallets, with downloads coming from over 160 countries.
The statistics, which was obtained from the apex bank by The Guardian at the weekend indicated that almost 17,000 transactions amounting to over N62 million with the average transaction being about N3,800 each were recorded as well.
The CBN said statistics had shown that the adoption of eNaira had been excellent.
The apex bank also claimed that the project had received positive reviews from Nigerians, noting that the multi-layered security encryption of the digital currency has enhanced its security. It stated this at the Editors’ Master Class with the theme ‘Central Bank of Nigeria Interventions as Fulcrum for Economic Diversification’, an event organised by the Centre for Financial Journalism in Lagos.
Speaking at the programme, the Director of Corporate Communication Department of the bank, Osita Nwanisobi, said the regulator’s interventions reflect the people-centric management approach of its current leadership.
Nwanisobi said the interventions were a conscious effort by the CBN to ensure that all Nigerians, especially the ordinary folks, benefit from the economy.
“These interventions do not just happen, they are well-thought-out responses by the CBN to exigencies. You would recall that when he (Godwin Emefiele) assumed office in 2014, he promised to run a people-centric CBN and a financial system that would meet the needs of the average Nigerian,” he stressed.
He added that the interventions were practical efforts to diversify the economy, stressing that the CBN under Emefiele had been at the cutting edge of initiatives to truly diversify the economy.
Nwanisobi said the interventions were responses to market failures, stressing that no responsible central bank would sit back and watch the economy collapse.
He traced the evolution of interventions by the CBN to 1979, saying the global financial crisis of 2008/2009 threw up multiple challenges the CBN had to respond to.
