To promote the adoption of eNaira as the preferred payment option in transactions in tertiary institutions across the country, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has begun its promotional campaign to the universities and other institutions of higher learning.
On Thursday, the apex bank partnered with third-party agents to launch the campaign to promote the utilization of the eNaira at the University of Abuja.
The Deputy Director of CBN, Joseph Angaye, who performed the exercise said the launching of the promo campaign in Abuja was among the engagements by the bank with a number of universities located in all the geo-political zones of the country to talk to students about the eNaira payment system.
He said the thrust of the various engagements was to seek for their partnership to ensure the eNaira was adopted as a means of payment for financial transactions, especially for revenue collection.
The eNaira, he noted, has really evolved from its inauguration by the former president, Muhammadu Buhari, almost two years ago, adding that the CBN has achieved several milestones since then.
He said there have been further developments in terms of improving the functionality based on feedback input the banks have been getting from various stakeholders, adding that the visit to the universities brought a lot of experience in implementing the programme.
The Central Bank digital currency, the director explained, was a new concept globally, with Nigeria as one of the early adopters of the currency called the eNaira.
“I think we are the second country globally to launch a digital currency. We have gained a lot of experience which the world is coming to learn from Nigeria,” he said.
Nigeria, he said, has been gracious in sharing its experiences each time the CBN was hosting people from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other central banks from across the world.
Although he spoke of the benefits of the eNaira, he however noted that it was neither to replace the Naira notes nor the existing payment system infrastructure in the country.
He said the eNaira digital currency was introduced to deepen the country’s financial system, especially the payment system, to address some challenges seen in the payment system infrastructure and to complement what was already available.
“The CBN did not introduce the eNaira to be a competitor to what the banks or other service providers were doing, but to provide a platform to leverage on to provide more effective services, in view of some challenges experienced from time to time using the payment system that was in existence.
However, he said the eNaira would help to promote financial inclusion, reduce congestion in the payment infrastructure as a result of downtime registered by the number of interfaces it took to initiate and complete transactions and give an opportunity to provide additional services that were not available in the Nigeria system, like facilitating payment even when there was no network.
The adoption of the eNaira payment system, Angaye said, would reduce leakages in the system when it comes to cash collection, and reduce stress when issues of reconciliation of accounting function were undertaken.
The Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Abuja, Prof. Aisha Sani Maikudi assured that the university was ready to partner with the CBN to educate Nigerians around the world on the benefits of using the eNaira.
“We have a robots virtual learning programme that can help develop content education in ways that can improve knowledge and confidence of Nigerians in the eNaira,” he said.
The Department of Banking and Finance in the university, he said, would be be dedicated to this campaign, while the students and staff would serve as agents.
