The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has partnered with third party agents to initiate a campaign for the adoption of the e-Naira option at the University of Abuja as part of its sustained efforts to popularize the adoption of the digital currency in tertiary institutions in the country.
Speaking on the digital currency initiative at the university, the apex bank’s Deputy Director, Joseph Angaye, confirmed that the monetary authorities had recently been engaging with some universities across the geo political zones of the country to enlighten undergraduates and residents in the institutions about e-Naira and to partner with them to ensure that e-Naira is adopted as a means of financial transactions.
According to him, the e-Naira has evolved from the date of its launch by the past administration about two years ago and the apex bank has achieved a number of milestones on the digital currency’s adoption, including development in terms of improving the functionality based on feedback inputs the CBN management had been getting from various stakeholders.
The banker noted that the CBN team came to the university with a lot of experience in implementing the digital currency which he described as a new concept globally and Nigeria is one of the early adopters of central bank digital currency called the e-Naira.
He explained: “So, the e-Naira is central bank’s digital currency of Nigeria. I think we are the second country globally to launch it and we have gained a lot of experience and the world is coming to learn from Nigeria and we’ve been very gracious in sharing our experiences, every day we are hosting people from the world bank, IMF and our sister central banks from across the world they are coming to learn the experiences.
The e-Naira has a lot of benefits. It is not to replace the Naira, it is not to replace the existing payment system infrastructure we already have but it was introduced to deepen the financial system, especially the payment system, to address some challenges we saw in the payment system infrastructure and to compliment what we already have.
“We are not introducing it to be a competitor to what the banks are doing or other service providers but to provide a platform they can leverage to provide more effective service am sure some of us have been experiencing some challenges from time to time using the payment system but e-Naira will help to promote financial inclusion, reduce congestion in the infrastructure.
“So, we are not brought down by downtime registering the number of interfaces that it takes to initiate and complete transaction and giving opportunity to provide additional services that are not even available in the Nigeria system like facilitating payment even when there’s no network”, the Deputy Director added.
In addition, Angaye maintained the adoption of the digital currency by Nigerians would reduce leakages when it comes to collection and it would reduce stress when it comes to issues of reconciliation of bank customers accounting functions.
In her remarks, the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Aisha Sani Maikudi, expressed the readiness of the tertiary institution’s management to partner the CBN in its awareness campaigns on the e-Naira benefits to bank customers and the nation’s economy.
She said: “We have a robots virtual learning program that can help deliver mojo’s and can also help develop content education in ways that can improve knowledge and confidence of Nigerians in the e-Naira.
“The department of banking and finance in the university will be dedicated to this and our students and staff can serve as agents to this endeavor”, the university don assured.
