The eNaira's Struggles: CBDC Lessons for North Africa

In October 2021, Nigeria launched the eNaira, Africa's first central bank digital currency (CBDC). Five years later, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has acknowledged that adoption was slow and is repositioning it as back-end infrastructure rather than a consumer wallet. For central banks in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, which are studying CBDCs of their own, the eNaira is one of the few real-world case studies available.

What the eNaira was meant to do

The eNaira is a digital form of the naira issued directly by the CBN. It is one of only three retail CBDCs operating worldwide, according to Central Banking. Like other retail CBDCs, it was meant to give the public a digital payment option backed directly by the central bank, with financial inclusion and cheaper remittances among the hoped-for benefits discussed by the IMF.

On paper, Nigeria was a logical place to try. It has a large, young population and a big informal cash economy.

The adoption problem in numbers

The early data were weak. An IMF working paper published in May 2023 found that the system had run without disruption, but that adoption had not moved beyond a limited first wave. According to Cointelegraph's summary of the paper:

• only about 1.5% of wallets were used in any given week, meaning about 98.5% were inactive;
• the eNaira had not reached 1% of Nigeria's population;
• fewer than 1% of bank accounts had an eNaira wallet linked to them;
• about 802,000 transactions had been made over the period studied, fewer than one per wallet.

Wallet numbers then rose, notably during the cash shortage caused by Nigeria's banknote redesign in early 2023, when people looked for any alternative to cash, and through welfare payments. By May 2024, about 13 million wallets had been created, most of them inactive, and cumulative transactions since launch were worth only N29.3 billion across 854,512 transactions, according to BusinessDay. For comparison, Nigeria's electronic payments totalled N611 trillion in 2023 alone.

Why it struggled

The CBN's own diagnosis is candid. Its Payments System Vision 2028, published in early June 2026, acknowledges that uptake was slow and points to limited stakeholder engagement and buy-in during design and rollout, according to WeeTracker. The same report says the central bank conceded that the eNaira offered little that bank apps, fintech wallets and mobile money did not already provide more conveniently.

Three problems stand out:

• No clear advantage for users. Nigeria already had fast bank transfers and popular fintech apps. A new wallet that did the same thing had little pull.
• Weak incentives for intermediaries. The IMF noted weak network effects. Banks and fintechs arguably had little reason to promote a product that could compete with their own deposits and payment flows.
• Adoption by pressure rather than choice. The cash crunch increased sign-ups but did not create lasting habits.

The 2026 pivot: from wallet to infrastructure

Under Payments System Vision 2028, the CBN plans to reposition the eNaira from a consumer tool into back-end infrastructure for:

• government-to-person payments, such as welfare and subsidy disbursements;
• cross-border settlement, including trade under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

The eNaira would sit alongside open banking, digital identity and cross-border payment frameworks. This is close to what the IMF suggested in 2023, when it recommended a clear strategy towards mobile money and pilots in remittance corridors.

Where North Africa stands on CBDCs

North African central banks are still in the study phase:

• Morocco. Bank Al-Maghrib is working on an e-dirham project and has explored its use for peer-to-peer and cross-border payments with support from the IMF and World Bank, according to The Paypers. It is also exploring cross-border CBDC transfers with the Central Bank of Egypt and the World Bank. Morocco's draft crypto-asset bill explicitly excludes CBDCs.
• Egypt. The Central Bank of Egypt is part of that cross-border exploration. In practice, its most visible domestic project has been the InstaPay instant payment network, covered in our article on Egypt's fintech boom.
• Tunisia. In November 2019, Russian agency TASS reported that Tunisia had launched a blockchain-based "e-dinar" CBDC with a Russian startup. The Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) denied this, saying no CBDC had been created and that it was only studying alternatives, including a CBDC, at a reflection stage, as reported by Cryptoast. This should not be confused with La Poste Tunisienne's e-Dinar, an existing electronic payment product covered in our article on e-Dinar and D17.

Lessons for Tunisia and the region

1. Solve a problem existing tools do not. Nigeria's experience shows that a CBDC must offer something bank apps and wallets cannot. In Tunisia, faster gains may come from instant payments and interoperability between banks, La Poste and payment institutions.
2. Bring banks and fintechs in from the start. The CBN itself names weak stakeholder buy-in as a cause of failure. Intermediaries need a business model.
3. Start with government and cross-border flows. The eNaira is ending up where it might have started: social payments and settlement. For a cash-heavy economy like Tunisia's, government payments are a natural first use case, as discussed in our piece on cash and informality.
4. Measure active use, not sign-ups. Thirteen million wallets meant little when almost all were dormant.

A CBDC is not a shortcut to digital payments. It works best as part of a wider payments strategy, not as a replacement for one.