The Central Bank of Nigeria has said it is slashing transaction fees for the e-naira platform by 50% — a move which the bank claims will increase the volume of transactions on the central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform. The central bank also believes that wider adoption of the CBDC will bolster Nigeria’s cross-border trade volumes.
E-Commerce Transactions Volumes to Boost
The Central bank of Nigeria (CBN), in yet another attempt to increase the adoption of the electronic currency e-naira (CBDC), reportedly announced that it would reduce the fees merchants and individuals pay for the use of its digital currency platform by half.
According to a report, Nigerian companies that sign on as enaira merchants can increase their volumes by up to 50%.
Quoting Kingsley Obiora, the central bank’s deputy governor, a Daily Trust report suggests that Nigerian businesses adopting the CBDC could improve cash management and potentially boost the country’s cross-border trade volumes. Obiora said:
The implementation of cross border transactions in the third phase of the eNaira project will increase cross-border trading by approximately 30%. The lower transaction costs are expected to boost eNaira usage and increase income generation for businesses.
Deepening Financial Inclusion
These remarks were made by Obiora at an event for merchants, just days following the revelations of CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele that CBDC only had 1 million users. According to Bitcoin.com, however, Obiora’s remarks were made at a merchant onboarding event.
Emefiele announced that to achieve this goal, the central banking would create a feature that allows users who don’t have a bank account or cellular phones access the CBDC. CBN recently revealed an unstructured code for supplementary data (USSD), which will help deepen financial inclusion.
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