Nigeria

eNaira remains live_stalled at ~0.5% of the CBN's original five-year adoption target

The eNaira launched October 2021 and reached ~1.9m wallets by end-2024 against an original CBN five-year target the IMF estimated at ~30m. Status is live_stalled per the XBY taxonomy — the programme has neither been deprecated nor has it scaled. The 2023 IMF Working Paper cited it as the world's first documented retail-CBDC implementation failure; the floated CBN-Gluwa 'eNaira Next' relaunch remains in pilot. For comparison, NIBSS' NIP private-bank instant rail cleared 11.6bn transactions over the same period.

Naira is the best-performing African currency YTD 2026 as FX reforms bind

The naira appreciated 6.7% against the dollar in the first four months of 2026 — the best African performance YTD — as IMTO settlement-account reforms and NFEM-window deepening pulled informal-market remittance flows into the formal rail. The CBN's March 2026 guidance signalled it would manage further appreciation carefully rather than uncap it. The macro shift is mechanically resetting USD-denominated VC valuations on Lagos fintech, after a 60% drawdown from 2021-22 peak; Moniepoint's October 2024 Series C at US$1bn was the first new unicorn print under the floated regime.

Super-app wallet concentration has restructured what 'banking' means in Nigeria

OPay, PalmPay and Moniepoint each individually serve more retail customers than any single Nigerian commercial bank; combined wallet usage exceeds 85m. The 2023 naira-redesign crisis was the inflection — when commercial-bank ATMs ran dry, super-app wallets sustained transaction flow and won permanent share. CBN's April 2026 dual-connectivity mandate (acquirers must route through both NIBSS and UPSL) is the regulator's first explicit acknowledgement that the rail-redundancy question has become systemic.

Nigeria received US$20.9bn in formal diaspora remittances in 2024 at 8-10% average cost; fintechs (LemFi, Moni, Nala) are compressing the US/UK/Canada legs to 3-4%. The CBN IMTO settlement-account reforms (March 2026) and the floated-naira regime have removed the parallel-market arbitrage that previously fragmented the corridor; formal-channel pricing for the first time competes on speed and UX rather than rate.

AfCFTA's Pan-African Payment and Settlement System routes NGN-for-local-currency settlement across 160+ participating banks in 15 African economies; Nigeria is the largest volume node. PAPSS turns the historically informal Nigeria-Benin and Nigeria-Ghana trade corridors into formal-rail settlement flows. The operator opening is in PSP connectivity into PAPSS for SME payouts; existing acquirers (Flutterwave, Interswitch, Paystack) have first-mover advantage but the connectivity tier remains open.

Four licensed PSBs (9 Payment Service Bank, HopePSB, MoneyMaster, SmartCashPSB) targeting financial inclusion under telco parents (9mobile, UnityBank, Globacom, Airtel). The 2023 redesign-crisis cash squeeze accelerated rural enrolment but agent-network density remains the gating constraint. Moniepoint's 2.3m-agent network is the operating benchmark; PSBs that match it on density rather than telco brand have the more credible path to the still-underbanked 30% of Nigerian adults.