The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) e-Naira billed to be launched soon would enhance tax efficiency and improve cross-border trade, especially with the implementation of African continental free trade area (AfCFTA).
The Director Monetary Policy Department of CBN, Dr Hassan Mahmud, said at the 31st seminar for finance correspondents and business editors in Enugu where stakeholders converge to discuss, “Trends in the Nigerian System: Regulating the Fintech Digital Playing field.”
Presenting his paper titled Implications of trends in the digital financial ecosystem for monetary policy implementation virtually, Mahmud said part of the motivation to launch the digital currency is the ability to aide Cross-border trade and boost tax efficiency amongst others.
He said: “The Central Bank of Nigeria in partnership with Bitt Inc., an international fintech firm, is set to launch its digital currency, e-Naira and this would increase cross-border trade, accelerated financial inclusion, bring about cheaper and faster remittance inflows.
“It would help with easier targeted social interventions, improvements in monetary policy effectiveness, payment systems efficiency and efficiency in tax collection.”
He further noted that the CBN digital currency will offer parity of value and will operate as a non-interest-bearing asset and that Nigeria’s digital currency will function under a tiered Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer (AML/KYC) structure with different transaction limits.
“The AML/KYC pyramid will reportedly encompass unbanked citizens to provide their national identity-linked phone numbers for verification and users in this category will be limited to a daily transaction limit of N50,000 (about $120).”
