The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is enabling consumers and merchants to use their smartphone to make and receive contactless in-store and P2P payments with the country’s eNaira central bank digital currency (CBDC) using NFC, even if they are offline, according to local media reports.

The CBN has added support for NFC payments to the eNaira digital wallet app and is also to pilot an NFC sticker that can be attached to smartphones, feature phones and other devices that do not support NFC in order to enable users to make payments in the digital currency.

“We felt we should innovate and build more means of exchanging services,” CBN official Shadrach Abdul told a workshop at the University of Abuja, according to a report by Nigerian newspaper The Sun.

“We now have NFC where we stick a sticker to your phone and use it to make payments. 

“Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you can stick it to any phone and it automatically makes it a smartphone and offers the same service. You can use it with any eNaira merchant.”

The CBN launched the eNaira in October 2021, announced in November 2021 that nearly 500,000 consumers had downloaded the eNaira digital wallet and in December 2022 restricted the amount of cash that consumers and businesses can withdraw from ATMs in order to promote the use of the CBDC.

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