President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday unveiled the e-Naira.
Buhari launched the country’s digital currency at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The event had in attendance the Vice President, Yemi Osibanjo; Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele; Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami; among others.
The digital currency was billed to be unveiled on October 1 but was shifted due to activities on Independence Day.
The country’s apex bank had said the e-Naira is a culmination of several years of research work in advancing the boundaries of payments system in order to make financial transactions easier.
CBN noted that the launch of the digital currency is a major step forward in the evolution of money.
The bank vowed to ensure that the e-Naira, like the physical Naira, is accessible by everyone.
As disclosed by CBN Governor, eNaira will support a resilient-payment system ecosystem, encourage rapid financial inclusion, reduce the cost of processing cash, enable direct&transparent welfare interventions for our citizens, increase revenue&tax collection, facilitating diaspora remittances into Nigeria, reduce the cost of financial transactions and improve the efficiency of payment in Nigeria.
''33 banks are fully integrated and live on the platform, 500 million has been successfully minted by the Bank, 200 million has been issued to financial institutions, over 2,000 customers have been onboarded & over 120 merchants have successfully registered on the eNaira platform'', CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele on the eNaira platform which has at least 2.5 million daily visits since it went live.