CBN Announces Substantial Increase in eNaira by 284.6% to N9.78 Billion in August 2023

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has announced a significant increase in the nation’s digital currency, the eNaira, which increased by 284.6% to N9.78 billion in August 2023.

The data was disclosed in the CBN’s latest ‘Economic Report’ for August 2023, which also highlighted a 14% decline in the volume of notes and coins to N2.65 trillion during the same period.

The CBN also reported an 11.7% decline in currency-in-circulation for August to reach N2.66 trillion. The decline in CIC was attributed to a rise in the use of electronic payment methods for business transactions.

Part of the report reads,

“There was a substantial increase in the eNaira, which rose by 284.6 % to N9.78 billion although the ratio of eNaira to CIC at 0.37% remained insignificant, compared with notes and coins which accounted for 99.63%. The volume of notes and coins, however, declined by 14.0 percent to N2.65tn at end-August 2023.”

“The retail wallet downloads saw a few weeks of 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 percent of Nigeria’s active bank accounts. Merchant wallet download has reached about 100,000 in end-June, which is about one-eleventh of the number of merchants with Point-of-Sales (POS) terminals which enables credit or debit card payments.”

It is interesting to note that in a bid to boost the adoption of the eNaira in Nigeria, Stakeholders have advised the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to collaborate with fintech companies to aid the adoption of digital currency.