The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in partnership with the Africa Fintech Foundry (AFF), plans to fund ten businesses in order to boost eNaira adoption in the country.
This was disclosed by the Head of AFF, Mr. Daniel Awe, to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) over the weekend in Lagos. He claimed that the country needs to embrace eNaira more widely since it benefited economic activities, helped the digital economy, and increased financial inclusion.
Mr. Daniel Awe stated that AFF and the CBN were working together on the hackathon to promote the use of eNaira.
He said, ”So the hackathon is a platform where innovators, developers, entrepreneurs, coders come together, to solve problems, to create innovative ideas.
- ”When we layer that on eNaira, it means we brought in different players within the ecosystem – developers, coders, innovators, entrepreneurs, to come up with different ideas, different use cases, that they can leverage on eNaira.”
- ”This is so that the consumers of eNaira will now see the benefit of eNaira, they will have the opportunity to see the problem that eNaira will solve,” he added.
Awe stated that the CBN’s role was simply to provide a platform for fintech startups and entrepreneurs to use to develop solutions that would benefit the whole financial services industry. He stated that over 5,000 participants from the finance community applied for the hackathon. He also stated that they were cut to roughly 175 teams and then to 70 for the quarterfinal pitching.
He stated that 20 teams would be chosen for the finals, with the top ten receiving assistance to increase eNaira adoption in the country.
He said ”Now, these top 10 potential businesses when they come out of the final of the hackathon, there is a cash prize for them.
- ”I think number one is going to get 5 million eNaira. Number two is getting 3 million eNaira. Number three, 2 million and the remaining, the next ten will get 1 million eNaira.
- ”Afterwards, those top 10 will resume in the AFF accelerator programme, whereby some of them will get some funding to start up their businesses on their ideas.”
He added that by the time they come up with good business with their innovations, employment would be created and they would increase the adoption of eNaira.