Following the launch of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot in October 2021, the Central Bank of Nigeria is now extending the eNaira service to target financial inclusion.
Initially, the offering was only available to bank account holders and via smartphone apps. Now the central bank plans to extend the payment service to feature phones by using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes which operate similarly to SMS. The hope is that this will further boost financial inclusion, which currently stands at around 70%.
Typically The USSD codes involve texting a special number, and a response is sent to the user, giving them a menu of options such as sending a payment. Initiating the payment involves the user sending another message. The popular M-Pesa African payments system has supported USSD since 2020.
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