Hoe verging het de e-Naira 1 jaar na de lancering?

• Nigeria is een van de 11 landen die een CBDC volledig hebben ontwikkeld.
• De Centrale Bank van Nigeria heeft verschillende manieren geprobeerd om de acceptatie van de e-Naira te stimuleren, waaronder het aanbieden van een 5%-korting aan commerciële chauffeurs.

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One year has passed since the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced the e-Naira, which officials thought would help the country’s economy and battle inflation. However, detractors claim that the e-Naira has fallen below expectations a year later.

On Tuesday, senior government officials, business executives, and central bank officials celebrated the first anniversary of the e-Naira in the country’s commercial hub, Lagos. Officials, during the occasion, claimed that more than 700,000 transactions totaling $18.3 million had been made using the digital currency. In addition, senior bank officials who graced the event on Tuesday claimed that e-naira, Nigeria’s CBDC, could play a huge role in changing the country’s fortunes and advancing the financial sector.

According to Godwin Emefiele, Nigeria’s CBN governor,

As we speak today, some of the fears that we had at the time of introducing our digital currency, which were predominantly centered around the risk of fraud and all that… we have not witnessed. The e-Naira is expected to enhance financial inclusion, support poverty reduction, enable direct welfare disbursement to citizens, support a resilient payment ecosystem, improve the availability and usability of central bank money, facilitate diaspora remittances [and] reduce the cost of processing cash.

Officials in the West African country believe the e-Naira theoretically holds its value better than the country’s official currency, which has decreased by up to 40% over the past year. Bank officials have also tried to scale the adoption of the digital currency and recently held public campaigns encouraging locals to embrace the e-Naira. However, despite the claims made by the officials, the big question has been, “Do Nigerians find the e-Naira useful”?

CBDC-adoptie in Nigeria is tegen een laag tarief

Nigeria heeft de meeste crypto-savvy community in Africa, but this has not been reflected in their sentiment toward the e-Naira. Chainalysis ranked Nigeria 11th globally and first in Africa for crypto adoption. Additionally, a KuCoin report noted that 35% of Nigerians between the ages of 18 and 60 either own or have traded crypto assets this year.

Echter, een Bloomberg rapport noted that less than 0.5% of the Nigerian population adopted the country’s official CBDC a year after it launched. According to Bloomberg, Nigerians have been perplexed due to the government’s lack of clarification following its crackdown on cryptocurrencies. In early 2021, the CBN banned banks from providing services to crypto exchanges. However, this move appeared to have made locals distrust the government’s CBDC and its elite. 

Nigerianen vertrouwen om economische redenen op crypto en als afdekking tegen inflatie. Studies hebben aangetoond dat burgers liever geld sparen en overmaken in crypto, aangezien de naira sinds 2015 bijna zes keer aan waarde is verloren. Financiële experts voorspellen moeilijkere tijden voor de valuta in 2021, wat betekent dat Nigerianen crypto-activa verder zouden kunnen omarmen. Daarnaast vinden de meeste Nigerianen dat het land geen CBDC nodig heeft. 

Adesoji Solanke, directeur van de in Lagos gevestigde Renaissance Capital Emerging and Frontier Markets Investment Bank, vindt het niet verwonderlijk dat Nigerianen de e-Naira nog moeten adopteren. Volgens hem lost de digitale valuta geen echte use-cases op en komt het niet tegemoet aan de behoeften van Nigerianen.

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