The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced that it may pilot its central bank digital currency (CBDC) as early as October 1 of this year, said Rakiya Mohammed, CBN’s director of information technology, during a webinar last Thursday.
Like many developing countries, Nigeria is faced with the problem of financial inclusion. Currently, its rate of financial inclusion stands at just 60 percent. As a digital form of cash, a CBDC would help make cash more accessible and enable the population to participate in Nigeria’s growing e-commerce economy.
The central bank is also motivated by the high volumes of remittances that Nigeria receives. In 2020, Nigeria was the tenth largest remittance recipient in the world. A CBDC could reduce the cost of these low value, high volume transactions sent by Nigerians working abroad to their families back home.
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