eNaira, the world’s first Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) faces an uncertain future two years after it was launched and billions of naira invested to develop and create awareness for it. Its inability to attract users continues to be its biggest drawback.
In May 2022, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a report that did not flatter the CBDC, as it showed that less than one percent of the banking customers in Nigeria downloaded the wallet two years after it was released – on October 25, 2021. The total volume of transactihons at 802,000 was less than the number of downloaded wallets at 919,000.
But the number of wallets has increased more than 12-fold to 13 million in 2023. The value of transactions so far rose by 63 percent to N22 billion ($48 million). That is a small number for a country with an adult population of close to 110 million.
As of September 2023, the total installs for the eNaira wallet remain below 1 million on the Google Play store, while the website is ranked 4,062 in Nigeria, according to Similarweb. Users also continue to complain about the poor service on the platform.
A user on X (formerly Twitter) with the handle @Cicerorian said he still uses the eNaira and it functions “very fine”. “Their customer service is very non-existent, so difficult to resolve basic things.”
When the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) launched the eNaira in October 2021, it said the objective was to allow for financial inclusion and fiscal benefits to ultimately boost the economy. However, experts have said the manner in which it was deployed is a clear example of how not to drive financial inclusion policy. Here are a few things they say have kept many users away from the eNaira.
The eNaira was launched in the same month that the CBN slammed a sledgehammer on the booming cryptocurrency market in Nigeria which trapped billions of naira in users’ funds across the various crypto exchanges. The restriction on cryptocurrency platforms from accessing financial services and the closure of their accounts left the market in disarray, with users significantly negatively impacted.
Hence, when later the same CBN came back with its digital money, which it also did a poor job explaining what it does and what the difference was from the digital currency it has banned, it met largely apathyrfkrf to the IMF report, it took 25 days for the number of downloaded eNaira wallets to reach 500,000 units – but going from there to 600,000 units took another 63 days, and to 700,000 units yet another 143 days. Bloomberg reported in October 2022 that less than 1.22 million Nigerians have used the eNaira wallet. In terms of customer feedback, the eNaira Speed Wallet app has ratings of 2.9 on the Android Play Store and 2.2 on the iOS App Store.