Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily Bloomberg I Heard podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm Stacy Marie Ishmael, Managing editor of Crypto for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. It's Tuesday, November one. About a year ago,
Speaker 1: Nigeria introduced a digital version of its official currency, the naira.
Speaker 1: The introduction of the so called e Nira was partly
Speaker 1: a response to concerns that the rising popularity of crypto
Speaker 1: in the country was going to threaten the banking system.
Speaker 1: Now there are a few countries experimenting with their own
Speaker 1: versions of digital money, including the Central African Republic, which
Speaker 1: we've talked about in the show, China, Jamaica, the Bahamas,
Speaker 1: and various islands in the Eastern Caribbean. Other countries, including
Speaker 1: where I am in the United States, are in the
Speaker 1: studying and thinking deep thoughts about feasibility phase of things.
Speaker 1: So how's it going for Nigeria and then Era, let's
Speaker 1: ask Bloomberg reporter Ruth Ola Rumby is the one year
Speaker 1: and only zero points five percent of the population is
Speaker 1: just in um either nire and Bloomberg Nigeria Bureau chief
Speaker 1: Anthony Osai Brown Usability is key, all right? Now, the
Speaker 1: usability argument is very little for its occurrencies. One of
Speaker 1: the topics that we cover a lot on this podcast
Speaker 1: is obviously digital assets, and you know, within digital assets
Speaker 1: certainly crypto cryptos. In the name that say is the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crypto Podcast. But we've also talked about something called
Speaker 1: central bank digital currencies, which is the idea of governments
Speaker 1: themselves issuing a kind of digital cash. Can you all
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about what the Nigerian ex
Speaker 1: periament with digital money has been like. Okay, so the
Speaker 1: Nigerent Central Bank launched a data currency about a year
Speaker 1: ago when the central bank decided that he needed a
Speaker 1: form of an alternity to the nira um and that
Speaker 1: was interestingly, after asking financial institutions not to honor crypto transactions,
Speaker 1: he felt he needed an alternative to crypto transactions, so
Speaker 1: it launched the inn Era to sort of replace crypto.
Speaker 1: And so that's what the central bank has been doing
Speaker 1: for some time now, and interestingly, the currency has not
Speaker 1: picked up, possibly as much as the central bank bop
Speaker 1: it would. Since then, Yeah, they've they've had about a
Speaker 1: million people downloading the inn Era. What percentage of the
Speaker 1: population is actually using this thing, it's about zero points.
Speaker 1: Five percent of the population is currently used in the admira.
Speaker 1: The right of adoption has been slow, and that's messing
Speaker 1: because people are not either not trust in the government
Speaker 1: in a given its stance against cryptocurrency, and mostly because
Speaker 1: many people also don't know about what's innira is. So
Speaker 1: you've got a country with a population of more than
Speaker 1: say two hundred million. The government didn't exactly ban crypto,
Speaker 1: but the central Bank made it pretty clear that it
Speaker 1: didn't approve and issued some sternly worded letters to other
Speaker 1: financial institutions, and they come out with this inn era
Speaker 1: and you know, according to your reporting, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons for that was trying to encourage people who live
Speaker 1: in Nigeria but didn't have a bank account. Is that correct, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's relatively correct. The innigent population about five per center
Speaker 1: for others have no bank account, and so the central
Speaker 1: Bank talked it to be the innira. Well, if five
Speaker 1: percent people of the people don't have a bank account,
Speaker 1: but we have at least one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 1: mobile subscribers, at least it's one percent of the population
Speaker 1: have the phones. So the central Bank felt the phone
Speaker 1: could be a good leverage to drive financial inclusion by
Speaker 1: creating an inn era which can you can basically use
Speaker 1: your phone to assess and pay for services through that platform.
Speaker 1: So that that was the idea to increase financial inclusion
Speaker 1: by leverage and mobile telect communications, but it doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like that's what's happening. There's been a lot of challenges.
Speaker 1: Awareness is there, and as Ruth said, there's also some
Speaker 1: level of suspicion, some level of lack of trust in
Speaker 1: the Central Bank. And then physically affordability. Affordability in the
Speaker 1: sense that yeah, that everybody uses the phone, but not
Speaker 1: necessary everybody that uses the phone can afford to load
Speaker 1: the phone with in era, So that has been also
Speaker 1: a challenge and a lot of people are just like
Speaker 1: indifferent about the in era. Usability is a big issue.
Speaker 1: Most people who have phones are already used to using
Speaker 1: their banking apps and alternatives from the banking sector. And
Speaker 1: also if you consider that internet pronatortion in Nigeria is
Speaker 1: less than and you need internet to use the INNIRA,
Speaker 1: so that could also be a reason for why adoption
Speaker 1: is very low in Nigeria. Ruth, what has the government
Speaker 1: been do going to try to drive adoption? So currently
Speaker 1: the government is trying to target the transportation sector and
Speaker 1: specifically the tricycle operators, and my guess is that the
Speaker 1: government is start getting them because they're everywhere, both in
Speaker 1: the rural area and the urban area. I live in
Speaker 1: a Punja and the transple is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: means of transportation here in the capital city. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask a like a completely. I have clearly never
Speaker 1: been to Nigeria. Question, when I hear tricycle, I think
Speaker 1: of like bike with three wheels. When you say tricycle,
Speaker 1: what do you mean, Yes, bike with three wheels, think
Speaker 1: Hollywood movies. I think India. You know Hollywood movies and
Speaker 1: if you go to any rural area in Nigeria you
Speaker 1: will find them. So it makes sense that this tricycles
Speaker 1: would be of Min's focus for driving adoption. I'm learning
Speaker 1: so much right now. So you know, Anthony Ruth, you've
Speaker 1: both been reporting on nigeria financial system for a long time.
Speaker 1: You know, we have interviewed some folks who have written
Speaker 1: about what's been happening to the attempts by the Central
Speaker 1: African Republic to launch its own digital currency as well
Speaker 1: as you know, they've been trying to follow El Salvador
Speaker 1: in adopting bitcoin. We've talked on this podcast about you know,
Speaker 1: the fact that lots of other countries are thinking about
Speaker 1: doing digital currencies of their own, with mostly mixed results,
Speaker 1: right Like, some of them, including the US, are like, ah,
Speaker 1: we're trying to figure this out. Some of them, like China,
Speaker 1: like we can make you use this. So there's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of range in terms of the success of adoption.
Speaker 1: With the latest attempts by the Nigerian government to drive
Speaker 1: people to to use this an era. Are you seeing
Speaker 1: are you I need to see any results or is
Speaker 1: this still a case of like in a year from now,
Speaker 1: it's still going to be a tiny fraction of the population.
Speaker 1: That's that's difficult to say. The central bank is quite optimistic, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, there's been It depends on what what happens
Speaker 1: going forward. Would were likely to see. People have suggested
Speaker 1: that the government intervenes by for example, pain have salaries
Speaker 1: or salaries below a certain rage in in ira if
Speaker 1: the central if the government takes such an action, they
Speaker 1: were kind of like, we are likely to see high
Speaker 1: take oporate in the in era. So it depends on
Speaker 1: what actions the central bank or the government takes going
Speaker 1: forward to compel usage of the inn ira, and if
Speaker 1: that happens, then we'll see a significant difference. But if
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen, then they're still going to be huge
Speaker 1: resistance in the tacoporate for the inerra. It also sounds
Speaker 1: you know, there's a quote in your story from one
Speaker 1: of the drivers of these motorized tricycles, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: why is the government asking us to collect in ira?
Speaker 1: I thought the government said cryptocurrency is bad, and I
Speaker 1: thought that was so interesting because it's like, it can
Speaker 1: be hard to explain to somebody how this is different
Speaker 1: from them using bitcoin on their phones. How is the
Speaker 1: government trying to help people understand the difference? Is the
Speaker 1: government trying to help people understand the difference? The government
Speaker 1: has just said that this is different from cryptocurrency. That's it,
Speaker 1: So most people I can't I can't explain to you
Speaker 1: how different this is to cryptocurrency. And you know, if
Speaker 1: the if the governments, that if the central that is
Speaker 1: introducing the innira is not communicating well with us telling
Speaker 1: us how different this is to uh to other forms
Speaker 1: of digital currency out there, that I think that's a
Speaker 1: that's a problem. I would never describe myself as a copywriter,
Speaker 1: but I do think it's been helpful for me to
Speaker 1: think about the difference here as you know, like and
Speaker 1: there are gonna be people who are gonna write me
Speaker 1: angry emails about that feel free crypto at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: But what I'm going to say is that, you know,
Speaker 1: like digital currencies like the Nira are like crypto issued
Speaker 1: by a government, right, whereas tokens like bitcoin, ether doage
Speaker 1: coin are things for which there is no central bank
Speaker 1: like entity someone described them, describe them as private currency,
Speaker 1: private currencies, government currency, and the private currency indeed. And
Speaker 1: so you know, I think like these sorts of distinctions
Speaker 1: might not matter to the person on the other end
Speaker 1: of a transaction, but governments get really fussed about them because,
Speaker 1: you know, as you said at the beginning, one of
Speaker 1: the concerns that governments often have is the stability of
Speaker 1: their own banking systems. And you know, various regulators around
Speaker 1: the world, not just in Nigeria, have definitely expressed concerns
Speaker 1: that cryptocurrencies could pose some kind of threat, real or
Speaker 1: perceived to the financial system. Yeah that like banks, commercial lenders, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have been very slow in adopting in pushing creating
Speaker 1: awareness for the in era because there's no instensive for
Speaker 1: them to do that. Cash taking on the act of
Speaker 1: the banks that put on in an inira wallets is
Speaker 1: not counted as cash on the books of the banks.
Speaker 1: This is a really really important point, and I think
Speaker 1: it's something that a lot of people don't necessarily pay
Speaker 1: attention to, which is the banks themselves are not huge
Speaker 1: fans by default of this kind of digital money for
Speaker 1: the exact reason that you're describing, which is they don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have the ability to make money on digital money,
Speaker 1: right because it's like when you're you're borrowing, if you
Speaker 1: have one era, that's a claim directly on the Nigerian
Speaker 1: Central Bank Central Bank, Yeah, exactly exactly, and not a
Speaker 1: claim on them. And meanwhile, they mobilize that deposit at
Speaker 1: the costom and so physically they are losing by you
Speaker 1: creating an nira and well it's on their account. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back with more from Bloomberg's Ruth all Around
Speaker 1: By and Anthony Osi Brown. You know, if you have
Speaker 1: somebody who's listening to this podcast and they're like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is interesting, I hadn't I never thought about that
Speaker 1: this way? What is like one key thing for each
Speaker 1: of you you think somebody should really like take away
Speaker 1: from you know you're reporting. I think the key thing
Speaker 1: is for me is the fact that this experiment UH
Speaker 1: needs some form of intervention to make it gain traction,
Speaker 1: and so far that intervention is not coming, and that
Speaker 1: until we get the intervention, the currency usage for EXAM
Speaker 1: in Nigeria is going to be a dream and their
Speaker 1: awareness is not just going to usability is key all
Speaker 1: right now, the usability argument is very little for the
Speaker 1: data currency. So for anyone launching a data currency, you
Speaker 1: have to think of the usability question and answer it
Speaker 1: before you introduce it. Once you don't create that question,
Speaker 1: once you don't answer that question, they're most likely you're
Speaker 1: not like likely to make any got it and Ruth,
Speaker 1: what about you? For me? I would say that you
Speaker 1: also need to invest in educating the public what your
Speaker 1: product is about. Obviously, if you'll bring it out to
Speaker 1: a product, you'll send a gap in the market. But
Speaker 1: if you're not educating the public the market, if you're
Speaker 1: not telling them why why they need to use this
Speaker 1: as well why it's good for them the rest of
Speaker 1: adoption of in Naira is going to do remain low.
Speaker 1: It's been one year and only zero points five percent
Speaker 1: of the population is using um in Nira. So if
Speaker 1: you're not giving out bangor campaigns, you're not telling people
Speaker 1: about it and why they need to use it. We
Speaker 1: probably will come back next year and still talk about this. Well,
Speaker 1: you're welcome back on the podcast next year or any
Speaker 1: time before that. Thank you both, it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you for having us. Thank you Ruth,
Speaker 1: and thank you Anthony for joining me today. You can
Speaker 1: find more of Anthony Osai Brown and Ruth olar Rumby's
Speaker 1: reporting on the Bloomberg Terminal on Bloomberg dot com or
Speaker 1: follow them on Twitter. Ruth is at olar room By
Speaker 1: that's O l U r O U n b I
Speaker 1: and Anthony is at O S A E B. On
Speaker 1: the next episode of Bloomberg Crypto. Is Bitcoin boring? Now?
Speaker 1: That's the current meme slash complaint among a certain kind
Speaker 1: of crypto enthusiast, and it reflects the recent very tight
Speaker 1: trading range for the largest digital token. How are traders
Speaker 1: responding to Bitcoin's relative absence of volatility? We'll discuss tomorrow.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Crypto, a daily podcast from Bloomberg and
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Speaker 1: Desta wonder At is our engineer. Original music by Leo Sidron.
Speaker 1: I'm Stacy Marie Schmal. We'll be back tomorrow