Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced new incentives for merchants and other users of its digital currency, the eNaira, as part of efforts to promote adoption of the eNaira.
CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele made the disclosure yesterday at the Abuja eNaira Merchants Mega event at ACCI trade and convention centre. To facilitate its adoption, the bank assembled a team of subject matter experts to further educate you on the enormous opportunities offered by the eNaira and provide the required technical support for onboarding during this event.
The event was organised by the CBN in collaboration with Araba Technologies LTD, PNAIL and Abuja Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) for Nigerian business community.
The reward scheme includes providing merchants with the required promotional (marketing) materials, subsidising the current merchant service charge by 50 percent and activation of a nationwide sensitization which early business adopters of eNaira can leverage on to market its wider adoption.
The deputy governor in charge of Economic Policies, Kingsley Obiora who represented Emefiele said merchants such as petrol stations, supermarkets, e-commerce and other businesses not only have significant roles to play in driving the adoption of the eNaira, but can also leverage on the opportunities offered by eNaira to improve cash management and make significant savings in operating cost.
More specifically, Obiora said “benefits to the merchants include reduced cash handling costs, elimination of failed transactions, instant settlement, increased speed of transactions, improvement in records keeping and elimination of challenges associated with giving change to customers, amongst others.”
Mr Obiora said CBN will continue to innovate and upgrade the eNaira platform to serve business and deepen the digital economy in Nigeria. To that end, the Bank is already partnering with Fintechs and have also put in place a robust Help Desk to provide support for merchants and other users towards ensuring seamless adoption of the eNaira.
ACCI President Dr Al-Mujtaba Abubakar commended the central bank for introducing the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). He told the stakeholders from merchants, traders, cooperative societies, business association, supermarket, hotels, restaurant chains, service providers, private school owners, transporters to embrace the initiative for the several benefits in it.
“Some of the benefit include; speedy delivery, safe, and simple trading and transactional opportunities to customers and end-users,” he said.
According to the CBN, ample opportunities for increasing business income abound through the adoption of the eNaira. Mr Obiora said , the availability of eNaira payment option on e-commerce merchant platform such as Remita is expected to complement the existing digital payment system, translating to about 50 percent increment in e-commerce transactions and at a lower cost.
Implementation of cross-border transactions in phase 3 of the eNaira project is expected to increase cross-border trade by about 30 percent.
