By: Damian Okonkwo
The march towards making the eNaira accessible and easy to use by all citizens had continued unabated by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Just last week, the CBN governor Mr. Godwin Emefiele revealed that the apex Bank has made it possible for Nigerians to access their eNaira wallets through the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) using their mobile phone without the Internet. This means more people will be able to make transactions through the eNaira using their bank's unique banking code without needing to login into the eNaira app just like the usual online banking services. This new feature which has been designed to promote rapid adoption of the eNaira is expected to commence next week.
According to the CBN governor, Nigerians can now open eNaira wallets using any phone of their choice through the designated USSD code. To access this service he explained, Nigerians only need to dial *997# from their phones to proceed with the eNaira transactions.
With this innovation, both merchants and consumers can now use the banks NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) to send and receive money from their banks to any other bank using the eNaira.
This recent development was disclosed by Emefiele last week Thursday during the Grand Finale of the eNaira Hackathon 2022.
At this same event also, the CBN further selected 10 start-up companies to receive cash support in varying amounts from the CBN using the eNaira as a way of encouraging these companies and other fintech companies in Nigeria to carry out most of their financial transactions using the eNaira.
These steps taken by the CBN is intended to promote a national adoption of the eNaira across various sectors and to encourage individuals to do so always.
Above all, the CBN governor lauded the efforts of the committee in promoting eNaira adoption in the country remarking that their current measures have attracted the attention of many countries in Nigeria including other African countries who are now coming to Nigeria to study the strategy used in implementing the eNaira adoption within the country.