CBN Intensifies Campaign On e-Naira Adoption

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has taken its sensitization exercise to the Lagos market where traders and other stakeholders were enlightened on the need to adopt the e-Naira.
Kotor Godfrey, Branch Controller of CBN Lagos while speaking recently at the Kairo market, Oshodi Lagos said the exercise was in a bid to ensure that the e-Naira is widely accepted, particularly at the grassroots.
The apex bank assured participants that witnessed the exercise that it will build an ecosystem that will allow everyone easy access and use of the e-Naira wallet even for small transactions.
Godfrey said that being the second Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) fully open to the public after the Bahamas Sand Dollar, the digital currency is gaining traction with the projection of its download to 10,000 in the second quarter of 2022 from the 7,300 recorded in the first quarter of the year.
He said to ramp up awareness and adoption of the e-naira, the apex bank, in collaboration with Bizi Mobile and Oshodi Market Leaders commenced sensitisation and activation of the e-Naira Wallet.
He said: “Available data showed that consumer wallet downloads have so far been the most downloaded over the merchant wallet, but transactions between Person-to-Bank and Bank-to-Person have constituted about 90 percent on the platform,”
Godfrey at the awareness campaign forum assured that the sensitisation exercise offers business owners, market men, and women the opportunity they have been waiting for to understand the technology and business of e-naira to enjoy its benefits.
According to him, the e-naira also known as the giant naira is the first in Africa and among the earliest in the world, and with the rate of phones that people have, transactions can be carried out anywhere with the use of a phone.
Obinna Ume, the Secretary of Oshodi Market Traders Association (OMTA), in his reaction, applauded the CBN for the initiative, adding that if the e-naira is well adopted, it will boost their trade, as far as seamless transactions are concerned.