The Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to make citizens move away from cash and adopt the eNaira Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) have been unsuccessful, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The eNaira, launched by CBN on Oct. 25, 2021, was Africa’s first CBDC. In a May 16 IMF report, the organization analyzed the adoption of the eNaira one year after launch. “The take-up of the eNaira by households and merchants has been slow,” the report notes. “As indicated by the levels of wallet downloads and transactions, the public adoption of the eNaira thus far has been disappointingly low.” For any given week, 98.5 percent of eNaira digital wallets were not used….