eNaira Charting the Course for Financial Inclusion on its One-Year Anniversary

Bitt joins the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in celebrating the one-year anniversary of the eNaira. Since its launch on 25 October 2021, citizens and residents of Nigeria were the first on the continent of Africa to be able to use a legal tender digital currency for their daily financial transactions.

Bitt and the CBN continue to work diligently to roll-out eNaira updates in adherence with the CBN’s published roadmap. The implementation plan identifies three phases. The project roll-out is currently in phase two. In addition to onboarding banked customers and merchants, and integrating and optimizing core banking systems to facilitate transactions throughout the existing eNaira ecosystem, other major achievements include:

• Unbanked customer onboarding and transactions via USSD
• Integrations with the National Payment Service for QR functionality and wholesale funds transfer
(RTGS)
• Onboarding of IMTOs and integration of DCMS to exchange Naira
• Multi-lingual support for mobile applications and USSD
• SMS Integration with CBN’s SMS gateway service
• Security hardening

The next phases will include:

• Onboarding of Nigerian Trade and Exchange platform
• Sector-specific tokens for grants and subsidies
• Programmable payments for eNaira payment scenarios

Brian Popelka, CEO, Bitt states “This year has been full of firsts for Africa. Being the first provides the opportunity to become the first to find solutions and to chart the course for others to follow. Today’s one-year milestone is an exceptional achievement for both the Central Bank of Nigeria and Bitt teams. We look forward to continued partnership on this CBDC deployment journey and to provide additional features to expand eNaira’s value to all Nigerians and everyone, everywhere.” Bitt has ensured that Nigerians play a pivotal role in this project by expanding its global team to include Nigerian engineers, product managers and executives. Imran Khan, EVP, Partnerships, states, “Utilizing
local talent cements our commitment to Nigeria and to the entire African continent as we endeavor to lower infrastructure cost and improve the access and user-experience of receiving and sending money, thereby promoting financial inclusion throughout Africa.”