Nigeria’s eNaira Wallet Nears 500,000 Downloads in First 3 Weeks: Report

More than 488,000 people have downloaded the consumer wallet for Nigeria’s central bank digital currency, the eNaira, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday.

• Launched on Oct. 25, the eNaira has been used for NGN 62 million (US$150,000) in transactions, according to Osita Nwanisobi, a spokesman for the central bank the Bloomberg story cited.
• Nigeria has minted about $1.2 million eNaira, central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said when the CBDC was launched.
• Nwanisobi said 78,000 merchants from 160 countries have signed up for the merchant wallet.
• The eNaira was developed by Barbados-based Bitt, the fintech company that also worked on the Eastern Caribbean central bank’s digital currency.
• Nigeria banned the use of cryptocurrencies in the country in February.

Read more: Nigeria’s CBDC: The Good, Bad and Ugly