EFFICIENCY IMPLICATIONS OF CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY ADOPTION: A DESCRIPTIVE ASSESSMENT OF NIGERIA’S ENAIRA
Keywords:
active wallets, financial inclusion, financial intermediation, network effects, payment-system efficiencyAbstract
Nigeria’s eNaira is one of the earliest live retail central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in an emerging economy. This study provides a descriptive assessment of the efficiency implications associated with eNaira adoption in Nigeria, while distinguishing eNaira-specific indicators from the much broader expansion of electronic payments. An ex post facto secondary-data design was used. Official Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) data on electronic-payment activity, eNaira wallets and currency in circulation were combined with recent peer-reviewed and institutional studies. The assessment covers transaction-system expansion, operational availability, adoption intensity, monetary footprint, access-related channels and possible implications for financial intermediation. Nigeria’s total e-payment volume increased from 16.33 billion transactions in 2021 to 38.73 billion in 2023, an increase of about 137.2%. This growth cannot be attributed to the eNaira because the aggregate series covers multiple payment channels and the study does not have a continuous public series for eNaira-specific transaction volume and value. eNaira circulation increased from ₦0.94 billion in the second half of 2021 to ₦18.31 billion in the second half of 2024. At end-June 2024, 28.46 million customers had been on boarded while 197,041 wallets were classified as active; the resulting 0.69% ratio is treated only as an approximate reported activity indicator because the CBN figures refer to customers and wallets. The eNaira accounted for about 0.34% of currency in circulation at end-2024. The evidence therefore indicates strong technical capacity but limited realised network utilisation. The study does not establish a causal economy-wide efficiency effect. Instead, it concludes that the e-Naira’s present contribution is constrained mainly by repeated use, merchant acceptance, interoperability, trust and the absence of sufficiently strong user value propositions.
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