Merchants are barred from exceeding N1 million a deal on eNaira transactions, the Central Bank guideline on the usage of the digital currency indicates.

This is part of the operating model and prototype design of the payment platform due to take off on Friday.

While the N1 million ceiling is placed on sending and receiving money per transaction on the eNaira, there is no limit to the amount merchants can sweep to their bank accounts.

The regulator is however working out the final transaction costs for digital currency users.

The Project Giant, unveiled by the CBN to banks, sets limits for eNaira transactions to be conducted by digital currency users with banks and merchants.

According to the CBN presentation, Tier 1 consumers with no existing bank account are to conduct daily transaction sending and receiving limit of N50, 000 each and cumulative daily balance of N300, 000.

For Tier 2 consumers (those operating bank accounts), the CBN pegged daily transaction for sending and receiving at N200, 000 each with N500, 000 cumulative balance.

The CBN pegged daily transaction for sending and receiving for Tier 3 consumers (with existing accounts) at N1 million each and cumulative daily balance at N5 million.

CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele had listed the benefits of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to include increased cross-border trade, accelerated financial inclusion, cheaper and faster remittance inflows, easier targeted social interventions, as well as improvements in monetary policy effectiveness, payment systems efficiency, and tax collection.

Stating that it took the issue of security very seriously, the CBN added that the eNaira system will be treated as a National Critical Infrastructure even as the system will be subjected to comprehensive security checks prior to go-live.

Banks are expected to market and promote the adoption of eNaira as a digital version of cash to existing and potential customers in support of financial inclusion objective of the CBN.

According to the guidelines, Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) will be allowed to invite all their customers to register for the eNaira.

With pre-generated codes, the banks can send invitation codes for on-boarding to a specific list of selected customers. On-boarding will be done for customers who have a code assigned by their banks. The banks have already validated and verified these customers.

The apex bank has specified the roles to be played by monetary authority, including the CBN, financial institutions, government agencies, businesses and merchants, banked and unbanked consumers as well as how the new currency would be designed and operated.

Participants in the e-Naira programme are featured in five stages, including monetary authority suite; the CBN will be handing the first product component that includes issue, distribute, redeem and destroy the currency. Store data on a cloud server, monitor and analyse currency transactions.

Under the financial institution suite, licensed financial institution will be able to request currency or issue stable coins, manage digital currency across branches, Know Your Customer (KYC), identify and anti-money laundering compliance capability.

In the eGovernment suite, the government will be able to efficiently process digital payments sent to and received from citizens and businesses.

Merchants will provide low-cost payment and business management software, Point of Sale (PoS), remote payment solutions, online capabilities, transaction analysis and reconciliation.

The retail consumer suite features user-centred designs for a great user experience. The architecture will be expandable to enable innovation; features advanced privacy and security.

The CBN has also outlined transaction cost for the eNaira wallet.

(The Nation)

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