Emefiele defends banning of crypto currency transactions

Godwin Emefiele, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has defended the banning of crypto currency by the bank apex bank saying that it is done in the best interest of depositors
He said this while appearing before  a joint senate committee on banking, insurance and other financial institutions; ICT and cybercrime; and capital market.
Acccording to the apex bank boss,  given the fact that cryptocurrencies were issued by unregulated and unlicensed entities made it contrary to the the CBN Act (2007)  which declares 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.
“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 that continuation of cryptocurrency 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.”
Acccording to him, nefarious activities like  scam, money laundering, payment of ransom for kidnapping, and finance for terror can be aided by crypto currency transactions.