The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is likely to introduce digital currency by October 1, reports quoting private sources have said. CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, had announced that the bank would be working on a central bank digital currency during the 306th Banker’s Committee meeting. According to the Director IT department, Rakiya Mohammed, the CBN had begun researching central bank digital currencies since 2017 and might conduct a proof of concept before the end of this year. The project name is tagged Project GIANT and it will use the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain.
Nigeria’s central bank further revealed that the importance of Naira included Macro management and growth, cross border trade facilitation, financial inclusion, monetary policy effectiveness, improved payment efficiency, revenue tax collection, remittance improvement, and targeted social intervention. Experts have formerly enjoined the CBN and the federal government to embrace digital currency. In 2020, Nigeria was ranked as the second-largest bitcoin trader with the trade valued at $566 million.
But in March, the CBN banned banks and other financial institutions from facilitating payments for cryptocurrency exchanges. This affected some who in the past made transactions that were described as cryptocurrency exchange. Soon after, the bank announced that it was working on a digital currency that will be made available before December 2021, a feat some experts said was not possible. This recent announcement has garnered both negative and positive reactions.