eNaira platform, which went live on Monday 25th Octobers, 2021, has within 24 hours witnessed over 200,000 wallet downloads, which indicates Nigerians’ massive interest in the Central Bank’s eNaira initiative.
33 banks have so far joined the platform.
Nigeria’s President Buhari launched the eNaira on Monday the 25th of October 2021, making Nigeria the first African country to create a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
According to information from sources in the Apex Bank, about 156,700 consumer wallets were downloaded while 23,650 merchant wallets were downloaded suggesting a massive early interest and adoption by Nigerians.
Record Google PlayStore where information about the number of app downloads is displayed shows over 100,000 downloads have been recorded thus far. Merchant downloads, which is meant for corporates has about 10,000 plus downloads.
Comparing eNaira App Downloads with other Nigeria Banking Apps Downloads
The records of downloads of some popular banking apps show that First Bank App has the highest download with over 5 million-plus downloads. While GTB, Access Bank, Kuda Bank all have 1 million-plus downloads respectively on the Google Play Store, with the apps being available for years. Apple, meanwhile, does not disclose the number of downloads for apps in the App Store.
Negative Reviews Trail Early Downloads
Despite the impressive numbers, early reviews of the app indicate frustrations among Nigerians who have downloaded the app. With over 2,596 app reviews, the app has an assigned rating of just 2 stars (2.9 stars with 81 rating on the Apple Store). Some complaints bother around challenges with registration, with some users having to wait for more than 24 hours to get a confirmation email. For example, an app user, “Ben” complained about having challenges with signing up despite several attempts.
“I have made several attempts to sign up but all to no avail. Each attempt produces a different ERROR report eg: you don’t have email registered with your bank. But “I do”. I tried again after some hours. ERROR report: You cannot register at this moment, try again later.. And on and on. It’s really frustrating. The developers of the site didn’t do good work therein.”
Another app user, Fajuyi Michael abandoned downloading the app.
“The app says ‘no email is attached to your BVN.’ I can’t register just because of this…. Sort this out otherwise many people will face similar issue. So far every data provided by the user is matching with BVN data. Email address shouldn’t be a stumbling block. What if one has changed the email attached to BVN if any.. Make I waka pass jare for now.”
The Central Bank response:
“Hello Beni, We highly regret the inconvenience. However, we could not understand the exact problem. Please shoot us a message at [email protected] with relevant details. We’ll be more than happy to assist you. Thanks.”
Before you go, read all you need to know about eNaira.