Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), will launch the pilot scheme of its digital currency by October 1 this year, according to Rakiya Mohammed, Director, information technology, CBN.
Mohammed who announced this during a webinar as it presented its digital currency initiative to stakeholders, the bank had been researching since 2017 to develop and adopt the digital currency.
The project called ‘GIANT’ will run on the hyper-ledger fabric blockchain, an open-source project for developing blockchain-based products, solutions, and applications used by private enterprises.
According to Mohammed, the CBN might conduct a proof of concept before the end of this year.
During the presentation, the CBN stated that about 80 per cent of central banks worldwide were currently entertaining the possibility of issuing “central bank digital currency” (CBDC), and Nigeria could not be left behind.
The financial regulatory institution maintained that the digital currency’s launch would include and allow macro-management and growth and cross-border trade facilitation.
In addition, it will also give room for financial inclusion, monetary policy effectiveness, improved payment efficiency, revenue tax collection, remittance improvement, and targeted social intervention
