4 Million eNaira Wallets, Representing 30% of All Wallets, Created in Q1 2023 in Response to Cash Transfer Programme

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, recently disclosed that over four million eNaira wallets have been created in anticipation of the second quarter disbursement of funds under the federal government social intervention programme.

This came up after the completion of the MPC meeting in March 2023 as the Governor took questions from journalists. According to Emefiele, the wallets were created in response to the request from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development as part of plans for the next tranche of conditional cash transfer programme for the second quarter of 2023.

Speaking further, he said that as of March 20, 2023, approximately four million wallets were created especially for social intervention payments, representing about 30 per cent of total wallets so far.

The Governor noted that within the last 18 months when the eNaira was launched, over 13 million wallets were recorded which had been categorized based on their level of usage:

• More than 12.6 million at tier zero
• 11,354 at tier one
• 367,000 at tier two, and
• 9,649 at tier three

“There are other good and encouraging data that puts the number of e-wallets and the value of eNaira transactions has reached almost N22 billion, which is a 68 per cent increase since the beginning of this year, over N10 billion of it had been minted, and then about N3.429 billion of it is currently in circulation. So, I will say we have seen good progress in the adoption of eNaira,” Emefiele was quoted in a CBN bulletin.

Mr. Emefiele explained that the N22 billion ($47.7 million) recorded in eNaira transactions represented a 68% increase since the beginning of the year, out of which N10 billion ($21.7 million) had been minted and N3.42 billion ($7.4 million) currently in circulation.

He said the Bank had witnessed commendable progress in the adoption of eNaira and was happy that it was helping to get more people towards financial inclusion and getting them away from exclusion in the financial system, stressing that eNaira remains a handy option to adopt.

“Today, one does not need a smartphone to use the eNaira as it has become compatible with all generations of mobile devices (old and new). Till date, over 1.4 million Naira transactions have passed through the eNaira platform,” Emefiele said as recently as March 31 2023.