CBN looks to reposition eNaira as backbone of Nigeria’s payment system after years of slow adoption

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The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is taking a fresh look at its digital currency, eNaira, as it acknowledges the limited adoption of the platform more than four years after launch.

According to Nigeria’s Payments System Vision 2028, the CBN has admitted that uptake of the eNaira has been slower than expected, with usage levels remaining low despite multiple rollout initiatives and infrastructure upgrades. The document highlights structural and ecosystem-related barriers as key reasons for the muted performance of Africa’s first central bank digital currency.

Launched in October 2021, the eNaira was introduced as a retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) and a digital representation of the Nigerian naira issued directly by the CBN. It was designed to function alongside cash and existing electronic payment systems, serving as a legal tender and a medium of exchange within Nigeria’s financial system.

From the outset, the CBN positioned the eNaira as a tool to support financial inclusion in a country where a significant portion of the population remains outside formal banking services. The digital currency was also expected to improve payment efficiency and reduce the cost of cash handling in a heavily cash-dependent economy.

However, adoption data has consistently shown a wide gap between wallet creation and active usage. While millions of wallets have been opened since launch, independent estimates and industry trackers suggest that actual transaction activity has remained a small fraction of Nigeria’s broader payment ecosystem.

A 2025 analysis of currency circulation in Nigeria indicated that eNaira holdings accounted for only a tiny portion of total currency in circulation, underscoring how limited its role remains in everyday transactions.

Over the past few years, the CBN has introduced several measures to improve adoption. These include technical upgrades such as USSD access for feature phones, integration with national identity systems to simplify onboarding, and efforts to encourage merchant acceptance. The central bank has also experimented with channeling certain government payments through eNaira wallets as part of its broader financial inclusion strategy.

Despite these efforts, Nigeria’s broader payments landscape has continued to evolve rapidly through private-sector innovation. Fintech companies and mobile money operators have expanded digital payments across urban and informal markets, making bank transfers, QR payments, and mobile wallets widely accessible to consumers and merchants.

This has created a competitive environment in which the eNaira has struggled to establish a distinct everyday use case beyond its role as a state-backed digital payment option.

More recent policy discussions within the CBN suggest a shift in emphasis toward improving integration and functionality within the wider financial system, rather than positioning the eNaira as a standalone consumer payment product. Reports indicate that Nigeria’s central bank is now focused on strengthening interoperability and exploring how the CBDC can better support payments infrastructure and broader monetary system objectives.

The eNaira remains fully operational and is still regarded by the CBN as legal tender. But its evolution reflects a broader reality seen across global CBDC experiments: adoption depends not only on issuance, but on sustained ecosystem integration, merchant participation, and clear user incentives.

Four years on from its launch, Nigeria’s CBDC experiment is no longer in its early rollout phase. It is now in a recalibration phase, one defined less by ambition and more by practical adjustments to how digital currency fits into a fast-moving and already highly competitive payments market.