The Central Bank of Nigeria has continued to make moves to revamp the crippled and inefficient digital currency ‘the eNaira’.
Turning to a New York-based tech firm for back up the CBN is making efforts to revamp the eNaira.
The CBN is in talks with R3 technology firm as technology partners to develop a new and improved system to manage the central bank digital currency (CBDC).
New software for the eNaria will be created to allow the CBN to have complete control over the initiative.
However, the unnamed source said the matter is confidential.
The effort to create the eNaira began in 2021 with the help of the financial software company, Bitt.
Addition Features
According to the report, the new partner won’t immediately take Bitt’s role but will help phase in total control for Nigeria’s apex bank.
In a statement, Bitt said it was aware that the CBN worked with various partners for its technological innovations.
It confirmed that it still worked closely with the CBN and was “currently developing additional features and enhancements.”
Although it is one of the first countries to have launched a CBDC, Nigeria’s eNaira got off to a sluggish start, with low adoption.
According to some reports, the ambitious project is “crippled,“ with only 0.5% of Nigerians using the CBDC.
In January, a Nigerian innovator launched the country’s first active Bitcoin Lightning node.
Shortly before that, the government announced its plan to create a legal framework for stablecoins and Initial coin offerings.
Nigeria is one of more than 90 countries exploring the use of CBDCs.
Others include Russia and Japan, both of which have plans to roll out their currencies before the summer.
The city of San Francisco is also looking into the possibility of developing a CBDC system.
However, there is active pushback against CBDCs from activists who call them “surveillance” tools.
