Nigerians free to trade, use cryptocurrency – CBN

Wale Ameen

Nigeria’s apex bank, the Central Bank of Nigeria says it had at no time banned trading activities in Cryptocurrencies in the country.

This was the submission made by the Governor of the bank at the 30th seminar for Finance Correspondents and Business Editors by the bank in Abuja with the theme, ‘Leveraging Digital Economy to Drive Growth, Job Creation and Sustainable Development in the Midst of a Global Pandemic.’

The Central Bank Governor  who was ably represented by the Deputy Governor, Corporate Services, Adamu Lamtek said rather what the bank did was to essentially protect the banking sector from the effects of cryptocurrencies.

He said the CBN did not place restrictions on the use of cryptocurrencies and does not discourage people from trading in it.

“The CBN did not place restrictions from the use of Cryptocurrencies and we are not discouraging people from trading in it. What we have done was to prohibit transactions on cryptocurrencies in the banking sector” he said.

The conference had in attendance the who is who in the Nigerian finance journalism space from across the country.

Also speaking at the event was the Editor-in-Chief of Business am, Mr. Philip Isakpa who spoke on how media practitioners can embrace the change currently been experienced globally with the evolution of digital. He noted that media practitioners must stay abreast as it had the power to drive the next wave of change desired in the media space in Nigeria.