The Central Bank of Nigeria wants financial institutions to develop products based on its CBDC – Finance

The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced that players in the country's payments industry will help develop and launch products based on its central bank digital currency, E-Naira.

Central bank open to suggestions

To deepen the adoption of e-Naira, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has asked payment service providers, financial institutions and fintech firms to develop and launch products based on its digital currency.

According to a Test report from the Vanguard, this plea was made by Rakiya Mohammed – the Director of the Information Technology Department of the CBN – while addressing financial institutions and fintech companies who attended the central bank’s one-day engagement session.

During this meeting, Mohammed is also said to have assured participants that the central bank does not compete with financial institutions or other players in the payment system. Instead, Mohammed said the CBN is open to suggestions or ideas that add value to the e-naira or improve the user experience.

Additionally, Mohammed is said to have urged the country's payment service providers to find more innovative ways to assist the public with the onboarding process. She also encouraged service providers to develop solutions that support offline e-Naira features including cards, wearables, USSD and others.

CBN’s financial inclusion goal

Meanwhile, the CBN is reported to be encouraging players in the Nigerian payments industry to support the CBDC given the anti-cryptocurrency governor of the bank, Godwin Emefiele quoted by another publication claiming that more people are downloading the e-naira wallet application. He said that since the CBDC was launched over a month ago, nearly 600,000 of the digital currency's wallet apps have been downloaded.

However, Emefiele, like the bank's Director of Information Technology, pointed out that support from the financial industry will be crucial if the CBN is to achieve its goal of accelerating the adoption of the e-Naira by Nigerians without smartphones.

Do you agree that the success of e-naira depends on it being supported by financial institutions? You can share your views in the comment section below.

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