 Welcome back to the Breakfast in Plos TV Africa. Let's quickly look at our second conversation with a new financial card introduced by the federal government. The central bank of Nigeria, CBN, announced the introduction of national domestic card scheme, which is effective January 16, 2023. The movers aimed at promoting stability, inclusion, growth in the financial and payment system and will be delivered through a Nigerian inter-bank settlement system. That's the NIB SS PLC, which is in the country's central switch in conjunction with Bankers Committee and other financial ecosystem stakeholders. The card scheme was also expected to foster innovation within, always expected to foster innovation within the Nigerian domestic market while enabling African and international entire communities allowing banks and other institutions to offer variety of solutions, including debit's credit, virtual, loyal and tokenized cards among others. The bank also said that a domestic card scheme would further enhance data sovereignty, enabling development of locally relevant products and services and reduced demands on foreign exchange. Nigeria has now joined a growing list of countries including India, Turkey, China, Brazil as leading examples, which have launched domestic card schemes and NSV transformative benefits for their respective payment and financial system, particularly for the underbound. We're now being joined by an economist, specialist, Obona Ukuku. Obona Ukuku, if you can hear me, thank you for joining us. Obona Ukuku, can you hear us? Well, I think that we seem to have lost connection with Obona Ukuku at this point in time, unfortunately. But I was just hoping that we would have him and so we talk about what this means, what does this really mean for us as a country and how does this affect us as an economy, what are the pluses and the minuses, if you like to say, in all of this, but unfortunately that's not. Kofi, what are your thoughts? Nigeria seemed to be joining the world, China, Brazil is on the list, we're doing great things in this country. Absolutely, absolutely. I have no idea what exactly this domestic domestic card scheme is meant to achieve and I was hoping that I guess would do justice to that. But all I can say is that Nigerians would look at this with a hint of suspicion. Yes, a hint of suspicion. That's natural pension to doubt and suspect everything government does. Why not? Do they want to take more money from us? Are they going to tax us more? I mean, you transfer money, you transfer money to me, let's say we can do a practical now, send me some money. Don't get me pinned. No, no, let's do some practical, send me some money, just take your phone and do whatever, whatever your bank has, let's say it's going to send money. You'll see that at least 25 now I've been taking, immediately, just like that, they did take 10, 50 kobe or something like that. So I mean, Nigerians are very patient because all these things are going on. People are not complaining, they're just paying it, faithfully. Faithfully. So the average person on the street is going to be wondering, this national domestic card scheme, the name sounds fancy, all right? It sounds nice, national domestic card scheme. People wonder, is this going to be another thing that's going to take more money from us? Because people are already tired of going through economic difficulties. You know, all right. So that is what I can say. But it'll be interesting to see how this unfolds. Obviously, like you said earlier, they want to promote stability, they want to promote financial inclusion, growth in the financial and payment system. If you look at the number of unbanked people in the country, it's too high for a country like Nigeria. If you've got people who are outside the financial system, it's too high. Having something like this will, of course, enhance the economy because it will make it easier and faster to make payments. It'll mean that more people are interested or captured in the net and are able to facilitate their businesses and their processes by making payments through this card. But Justice, I mean Justice, we anticipate it and try to understand what this is about and how noble this will be for the people. Let's also not forget that we haven't really been faring very well with the Apex Bank. And according to the Central Bank of Nigeria, this is an ideology and an idea from the Apex Bank. And so that's what it is. How far have we fed? Have you discovered that it's been very, very, very difficult this phase carrying out different transactions with the banks? We're not doing very well. And some people think that the government feels like the people are relaxed. We need to stress these people. You know what it is to get the NIN, get everything, the PVC, all of the stress. I just hope it brings them out. We don't need more stress. But you know, the FinTech sector in the country is doing so well. The private sector driven FinTech innovations, they're doing so well, not just in Nigeria, they're exporting to other countries and the ranking high as far as start-ups in Africa are ranked by the global conglomerate. So I hope that the CBN can change its approach to Nigerian tech companies and start-ups who have been hounded over the past, you know, who've been given all sorts of calls, all sorts of names, and to see how they can collaborate with these people to make financial inclusion a reality. We have to go measure. Well, that's the size of our conversation this morning on the breakfast. We appreciate your time being with us from seven o'clock up until this moment. We'll definitely return tomorrow with more interesting conversations. We appreciate you. And if you missed out on any part of it, you're just joining, it's all right to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and do subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. My name is Messi Ibupo. Have a fantastic. And my name is, my name is Kofi Bartel, Supes Messi. Sorry. And I hope that as we're stepping out of the office, we'll not be stepping into flood since they said VI is part of the place in Victoria Island. We'll return tomorrow. Good morning. Have a nice day.