By Tolulope Oke
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code for its eNaira in Kano State.
The CBN explained that the program will encourage financial inclusion and boost national efforts to combat poverty.
According to the report, 35.9% of adult Nigerians do not have access to formal financial services, and over 45 percent of Nigerians do not have a bank account.
The Deputy Governor of CBN (Operations), Mr. Folashadun Adebisi Shonubi, gave the keynote address at the official unveiling ceremony held in Kano on Thursday. He noted that the launch of the code was a significant milestone in achieving the goal of the second phase of the eNaira project, which is to drive financial inclusion by onboarding unbanked and underserved users utilizing the offline channels.
The apex bank said that despite the large number of adult Nigerians who lack a bank account, research has shown that over 81 percent of the adult population in Nigeria owns a mobile phone, and there are approximately 150 million mobile subscribers in the nation.
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In order to provide digital financial services to the underserved and unbanked population, the eNaira strives to take use of the enormous possibility that mobile telephony brings.
“Specifically, we are here to launch the eNaira USSD channel using *997# for onboarding and transactions,” he said.
Similarly, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) Instant payment solution, which he said would enable eNaira customers to effortlessly transact between the eNaira and any bank of their choice, will become accessible before the end of August, he continued.
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