eNaira patronage low – IMF

THE International Monetary Fund has described the public adoption of the eNaira as disappointingly low.

This was contained in a working paper that was released recently by the body and titled ‘Nigeria’s eNaira, One Year After’, where the Bretton Woods institution highlighted how the digital currency fared in its first year.

Explaining that about 98.5 percent of eNaira wallets that were downloaded after the unveiling have been left unused, IMF stated that Central Bank Digital Currency project had yet to move beyond the initial wave of limited adoption, IMF added that the eNaira usage by households and merchants has been slow.

The retail wallet downloads saw a few weeks of the initial surge before tapering off. More specially, it only took 25 days for the number of downloaded 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.As of end-November 2021, the total number of retail eNaira wallets amounted to about 860,000. This is just 0.8 per cent of Nigeria’s active bank accounts,” the paper reads.

It will be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari formally unveiled the digital currency at the State House, Abuja on October 25, 2021.