The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced it will cut the service costs incurred by people and businesses utilizing the digital currency platform by 50% in an effort aimed at encouraging the embrace and adoption of the e-naira central bank digital currency (CBDC).
In addition, Nigerian businesses signing on to become e-naira merchants have an opportunity to increase the volumes of their respective e-commerce transactions by 50%, according to a report.
Kingsley Obiora, the central bank’s deputy governor, commented on this stating that merchants could be owners of petrol stations, supermarkets, e-Commerce, and other businesses. He also added that individuals and businesses should leverage the opportunities offered by eNaira to improve cash management and make significant savings in operating costs.
He further stated that the platform is imbued with opportunities for increasing business income as the availability of the eNaira payment option on e-Commerce merchant platforms such as Remita is expected to complement the existing digital payment system, translating to about a 50% increment in e-commerce transactions and at a lower cost.
The central bank governor also emphasized that Nigerian businesses adopting the CBDC could also potentially boost the country’s cross-border trade volumes.
Obiora stated, “Also, the implementation of cross-border transactions in phase 3 of the e-naira project is expected to increase cross-border trade by about 30%. Furthermore, the lower transaction cost is expected to increase the usage (transaction volume and value) of eNaira and improve income generation by businesses.”
The remarks by Obiora, who reportedly spoke at a merchant onboarding event, come just days after CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele revealed that the CBDC had less than 1 million users. However, the CBN is now targeting a tenfold increase in the number of e-naira users.
Emefiele stated that the central bank would implement a feature to enable users of smartphones with no bank accounts to access the CBDC in order to do this. The CBN has since unveiled an unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) code which it says will deepen financial inclusion.