PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) released a report on the best performing digital currencies in the world considering all central bank digital currency (CBDCs) projects globally.
Driving the news
PwC in its 2022 report listed CBN’s eNaira (first digital currency in Africa) and Bahama’s sand dollar (first digital currency in the world) as the world leading retail and wholesale digital currencies.
- The distinguishing factors for the evaluation of CBDCs are the central bank’s opinion of the project and public interests, such as downloading and usage by customers.
- PwC report proves that 80 percent of countries’ central banks are either considering owning a digital currency or have created one.
eNaira numbers
With the launch of Africa’s first digital currency, eNaira, in October 2021, customers have created over 660,000 speed wallets (as at December, 2021). Also, 90 percent of the recorded transactions have been a reciprocal dealing of person to business and business to person.
- The report shows that the eNaira wallet speed has been downloaded in 160 countries across the world.
- Users have transacted eNaira 35,000 times on the platform.
About eNaira
eNaira is Nigeria’s digital currency with the same value as its paper counterpart. One purpose of eNaira, as identified by the CBN Governor, Godwin Emefiele, is that it reduces the millions of naira Nigeria spends on printing paper currency. Another being that payment is easier as vendors do not need to go through back-breaking processes to make change for their customers.
- One eNaira is the same value as one Naira, i.e N1=1 eNaira.
- eNaira wallet is the recognized digital storage that accesses and holds the eNaira.