The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continues to innovate on the eNaira, Nigeria’s digital currency. The new evolution is the addition of USSD capabilities: “The newly unveiled USSD code according to the CBN will avail Nigerians opportunities to endless possibilities through financial services. The eNaira has been reported to have recorded 840,000 downloads since its launch in 2021, and has recorded N4 billion transactions across the 270,000 active wallets comprising 252,000 consumer wallets and 17,000 merchant wallets.
”Those numbers are really poor when you look at the resources they have put in this project. A GTV of N4 billion is sub-optimal. The biggest problem for eNaira is that Nigerians are more concerned on how to make Naira in any form and not whether it is paper Naira, mobile money Naira, eNaira or the type in a fintech wallet. Provided it is Naira, they are fine.
While there is a marginal saving of say N26 per N50,000 when you use eNaira, that is not the real headache for most people! I challenge the apex bank to think deeper on how using eNaira will help people make more Nairas as businesses or citizens.
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Until that is figured out, this product will underperform. The lack of value acceleration or compounding is the challenge for eNaira.
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Comment 1: You’re right Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe .
Will eNaira improves Naira exchange rate? If not, it won’t fly. Think we should focus on the fundamentals that’ll improve our economy.
Make a productive economy of our nation, reduce foreign consumption in any form or guise, eat what we produce and produce what we eat!
Start up firms that’ll will become foreign exchange earners and encourage individuals and companies with same intent. These for me are the fundamentals to turn our nation around.
And it is a No Brainer Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe , you have said same things in different ways many times and over. Thanks again.
Comment 2; Very insightful. Thinking down the value chain is one thing few businesses or government in this case understands. We want to help our customer, so that we won’t have to advertise to them. I am with you on this Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe
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This thing called ‘financial inclusion’ in our own environment means what: those with money but without bank accounts or those without money but with bank accounts, or mixture of everything? We communicate confusion a lot in this country.
If the CBN is looking for mass adoption of eNaira, it cannot be bottom-top approach this time, but rather top-bottom, and it doesn’t require wasting plenty money to drive adoption, network effects can help out.
Can the CBN influence the salaries/allowances of national assembly members to be done via eNaira? All of them have people they dash money, and by the time they ask their acolytes and dependents to open enaira wallets, we will be getting somewhere. Add ministers and all public and civil servants at federal level, and we have millions. By the time all these people want to shop, the merchants will be ‘forced’ to open enaira wallets too.
Without too much running around, more than half of Nigerian population will have enaira wallets and start carrying out financial services in enaira at scale.
Our problem is that in our quest to steal and confuse, we always forget how to evolve thought processes. So anything that doesn’t entail awarding ridiculous contracts won’t count.
Strange people.