Fakoyejo Olalekan
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revealed *997# as the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code for the eNaira. The apex bank said the new code will increase the possibilities of the naira.
Recall that the Nigerian financial regulator had launched the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) on October 25, 2021 without the USSD code, but individuals and merchants have been using the eNaira to transact via the app platform.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelSince the government-backed digital currency app was released 10 months ago, it has recorded 840,000 downloads, with N4 billion transactions, as only 270,000 wallets are active, consisting of 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.
Speaking on the advantages of the USSD code at the launch of the *997# mobile code at Kano, during a five-day Northern eNaira fair 2022, on Thursday, the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, said it will improve the usage of the Nigerian currency.
Emefiele, who was represented at the event by CBN’s Deputy Governor of Operations, Folashodun Adenisi-Shonubi, said the eNaira will increase the availability of the central bank money, as well as assist in the direct welfare disbursement to citizens.
Other opportunities he said the Central Bank Digital Currency has includes enhance diaspora remittances, “The eNaira is expected to enhance inclusion, support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payments ecosystem, improve availability and usability of central bank money.” Emefiele said.
It was gathered that the eNaira will be driven by the 150 million mobile subscribers in Nigeria, where 81 million out of the over 100 million adult population have mobile phones.
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