Grace Ashiru
According to governor Godwin Emefiele, the Central Bank of Nigeria is starting the second phase of the eNaira project, which aims to promote financial inclusion for the underserved and unbanked through offline channels.
According to the apex bank, since the first phase of the eNaira initiative debuted in October 2021, it has received 840,000 downloads and 270,000 active wallets, resulting in a significant volume and value of transactions.
The second phase will enhance the integration of the eNaira with the national payment infrastructure by enabling businesses and customers with bank accounts to use the NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) to send and receive eNaira to any bank account.
During his keynote speech at the eNaira Hackathon’s Grand Finale, Emefiele made the announcement.
Young Nigerians showed a lot of interest in the hackathon, which was held in association with Africa Fintech Foundry. A total of 4,667 registrations were made, with 4,082 men and 582 women participating.
Emefiele praised the participants for their creative solutions and efforts to expand the financial environment.
The eNaira project aims to boost Nigeria’s degree of financial inclusion. All Nigerians should be able to access the eNaira wallet, which may be accessed by dialing *997 from a cell phone.
The project has so far had tremendous success, with over 200,000 transactions totaling over NGN 4.4 billion. Using a diffusion of innovation model estimate, the project’s second phase has an eight million user target.
