By Enyichukwu Enemanna
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said the newly introduced National Domestic Card will help to strengthen the country’s sovereignty as well as protect the data of Nigerians, ending the era when bank information of citizens are totally domiciled in the custody of foreign industry players, including MasterCard.
According to the apex bank, the innovation will reduce the cost foreign exchange use, make cards and payments more accessible and affordable for Nigerians.
Among other functions, the National Domestic Card which was officially deployed on Monday, January 16, 2023 will serve as both a credit card and debit card for every holder.
According to the bank, “The domestic card scheme will be an important game changer for financial inclusion in Nigeria.
“The plan is to deliver Africa’s first central bank-driven, domestic card scheme that combines a fully domestic infrastructure with international interoperability.
“Our plans will enable us to pivot into the largest card scheme in Africa, and amongst the biggest globally.”
The card expected to be launched this month by the CBN in partnership with Nigeria Inter-bank Settlement System (NIBBS) will compete with other card service operators, including Mastercard, Discovery, Visa cards and more.
Local banks and other financial institutions are expected to offer payment solutions like credit, debit, virtual, loyalty, tokenised cards, non-interest and identity card.
According to the apex bank, its decision to roll out this banking service is borne out of its conviction that Nigeria is mature and has achieved substantial digital transformation in its payments system in the last 10 years.
The project has been driven by rapid digital and tech innovation, increasing mobile access and the policies of the CBN which have boosted unrivalled adoption of digital financial services in the country, the bank stated.
The Managing Director NIBBS, Premier Oiwoh in his remarks at a Bankers Committee meeting recently remarked that the card is being deployed to help improve the payments ecosystem in the country.
He said, “This card will be configured to address the unique ecosystem issues that we have to help improve payment system issues that we have across the nation.
“We also expect the card to provide affordable pricing, adding that the charges will certainly be lower because it is expected to be charged in Naira as against foreign currency.
“NIBSS is a sharing infrastructure and the card central management system will be shared and each integrating entity will integrate via the APR platform we expect that other value addition will be mined and created around this scheme.”
The CBN and NIBBS are hopeful that the scheme will unify payments in Nigeria and bring in the unbanked population.
