Nigeria’s securities market regulator is working with the nation’s central bank to forge a approach ahead for the embattled trade. The Securities and Exchange Commission acknowledged {that a} current ban by the bank had disrupted Nigeria’s digital currency trade, whereas pledging assist to promote innovation within the nascent trade.
Nigeria is the world’s second largest peer-to-peer digital currency market and the chief in Africa. However, a ban by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on digital currency-related banking providers has threatened to stifle its fast development. CBN claimed that the ban was to shield Nigerians from the dangers that digital currencies pose, corresponding to cash laundering and terrorism financing.
Nigeria’s SEC has now revealed that it has been looking for to discover a approach across the ban, working with the banking watchdog. Lamido Yuguda, the SEC director normal, revealed his group’s efforts whereas talking at a current digital capital markets trade occasion.
“We are in dialogue with CBN for each understanding and higher regulating of this market. We will likely be in a position to come again to you later to inform you of the end result of those engagements,” he told the attendees.
The SEC head identified that the ban has had a drastic effect on the digital currency trade. “In the world of crypto property, you recognize that with the current prohibition by the CBN on entry to Nigerian bank accounts by crypto exchanges, that market has been disrupted. Remember that no one operates within the Nigerian capital market if that particular person doesn’t have entry to a Nigerian bank account,” he famous.
Before the surprising ban by the CBN, the SEC had been working on a regulatory framework for the trade. However, the ban disrupted this course of. The regulator is now specializing in guaranteeing the banking ban is lifted earlier than it may well flip its focus to its earlier mandate.
“Because of the shortage of entry to business bank accounts, we had to droop our personal tips of September 2020. The implementation of that round is suspended till these operators are in a position to have entry to Nigerian bank accounts.”
Yuguda stays optimistic that the 2 regulators will likely be in a position to resolve the banking difficulty, permitting Nigerian innovators to reap the benefits of BSV and different digital currencies to energy new and simpler monetary techniques.
As CoinGeek reported, digital currency startups in Nigeria have been dealing with one hurdle after one other as the federal government continues to clamp down. The newest is the lack of their entry to the nation’s ubiquitous KYC system, the ban verification quantity (BVN). Digital currency—and different fintech—startups now have to incur additional prices to carry out one of the vital vital onboarding processes.
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