The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele recently informed the general public that the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee is planning to implement an improved monetary policy and Central Bank that will chart a new course for monetary policies in Nigeria. The governor made this statement at a strategic Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) retreat in Lagos on Friday. The theme of the retreat was “Monetary Policy Implementation in a Digitally-Evolving Developing Economy”.
Mr. Emefiele said that technology and innovation were playing a major role in Nigeria’s economic development, hence there was a need to restructure the existing monetary policies governing the country’s financial system in order to adapt new monetary policy tools that will improve the contribution of technology and innovation to Nigeria’s growth equation. He also said that Nigeria’s monetary policy systems have been severely challenged. This is because the implementation of some of the policies have been severely narrowed due to its inability to address emerging challenges in the country. He reiterated the need to rethink monetary policies in the context of solving modern challenges and transforming the economy.
He also stated that some of the challenges facing the implementation of the central banking and monetary policies in the ecosystem stemmed from the impotency of the traditional tools being used to carry out those functions. He said that in order to ensure the relevance of monetary policies and authorities in the country, the Monetary Policy Committee must embrace the new-age of digitization of money policy objectives, targets and tools. He also commended the organizers of the retreat as he charges them not to forget it’s purpose which was to conduct an assessment of the committee’s performance after four years since the last retreat and brainstorm new ideas targeted at addressing the numerous challenges that plague the formation and implementation of monetary policies in Nigeria.
Mr. Emefiele also said that innovation has many benefits for sporadic economic transformation, particularly in financial inclusiveness which has been the main catalyst for poverty reduction, job creation and systemic growth. He also mentioned that innovation came with it’s own risks and uncertainties which must be duly addressed. The governor informed the general public that Nigeria’s apex bank (Central Bank of Nigeria) is championing the principle of financial inclusion to achieve the set Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), one of these financially inclusive decisions being the launch of the e-naira. He said that since it’s launch, a large chunk of the unbanked populace had been captured into the formal sectors. This means a positive improvement in the efficiency of monetary policies and better standard of living for the entire populace.
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