E-Naira:Banks,Others May Create E-Wallets– CBN

The Central Bank has said after the launch of the eNaira project, banks and other licensed operators may provide their own wallets since it does not intend to compete against them.

The apex bank  sent a presentation to banks about the eNaira project releasing more details and guidelines about the project to banks.

It said the e-Naira would be a legal tender for the entire country and also  have non-interest-bearing CBDC status, a transaction limit for customers, and a value-based transaction limit.

The apex bank said participants in the eNaira programme will feature in five stages.

It  added:“Monetary authority suite: The central bank will be handing the first product component that includes issue, distribute, redeem and destroy the currency. Store data on a cloud server, monitor and analyse currency transactions.

“Financial institution suite: licensed financial institution will be able to request currency or issue stablecoins, manage digital currency across branches, KYC, identify and AML compliance capability.

“eGovernment suite: the government will be able to efficiently process digital payments sent to and received from citizens and businesses. Merchants will provide low-cost payment and business management software, POS, remote payment solutions, online capabilities, transaction analysis and reconciliation.

“Retail consumer suite: features user-centred designs for a great user experience. The architecture will be expandable to enable innovation; features advanced privacy and security.”

It said that the planned  transaction cost for the e-Naira wallet was stated.  It said the digital currency infrastructure would not charge for user-to-merchant transactions and P2P wallet transactions.

The CBN said the  responsibility is on banks to promote and market the centrally issued digital currency as a cash alternative to existing and potential customers in support of its goal for financial inclusion.

It explained that banks would facilitate the onboarding process of the eNaira and provide world-class customer service.

It further said since the eNaira is a national critical Infrastructure, its system will be subjected to comprehensive security checks, and all data and personally identifiable information will be kept off the ledger and not be stored on the ledger.