Crypto Ban: It’s In The Best Interest Of Every Nigerian – Emefiele

Crypto Ban: It’s In The Best Interest Of Every Nigerian, Says Emefiele
CBN Governor – Godwin Emefiele

Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele has expressed that the Bank’s decision to financial institutions on cryptocurrency transactions, is in the best interest of depositors and the country’s financial system.

Emefiele made the declaration on Tuesday while briefing a joint Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions; ICT and Cybercrime; and Capital Market.

The CBN Governor stated that the use of cryptocurrency contravened an existing law.

He said given the fact that cryptocurrencies were issued by unregulated and unlicensed entities made it contrary to the mandate of the Bank, as enshrined in the CBN Act (2007) declaring the Bank as the issuer of legal tender in Nigeria.

He declared that “Cryptocurrency is not legitimate money” because it is not created or backed by any Central Bank.

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“Let me state that this decision is in the best interest of every well meaning Nigerian, who have nothing to hide and is happy to have traceable and transparent dealings in our financial system,” Emefiele said.

“Cryptocurrency is used to describe the activities of traders in an electronic dark world where transactions are extremely opaque, not visible and not transparent. These are people who deal in transactions that do not want to be trailed.”

He said CBN knows that a continuation of the transaction significantly threatens the safety and soundness of Nigeria’s collection system.

“CBN has a major and primary responsibility as a primary regulator to protect activities of actors, bank stakeholders and uninformed actors in the financial system from other actors who may wish to take advantage of their lack or limited knowledge to rip off the uninformed.

“And that is the reason we have banned all banks to desist from operating accounts for cryptocurrency dealers in Nigeria.

“We have also asked our banking supervision and payment system and our IT department to conduct investigation into the activities of forex exchanges and their major players.

“The result of the investigation will led to better understanding of their activities and will be unveiled to all.”