Why we’ve reduced minting of Naira notes - CBN

The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN has hinted that the printing of the Naira has reduced over the months due to the increase in cashless transactions.

This position was revealed by the CBN Deputy Governor, Economic Policy Directorate, Dr Kingsley Obiora, who noted that in line with the prevailing circumstances, Nigeria had joined other major economies that have started reducing the use of cash as a form of business transaction.

Among the countries that have reduced the use of cash for daily transactions, South Korea and the Philippines were mentioned as both countries had just about 77 percent and 30 percent of the population respectively who don't use cash to transact their daily businesses.

With the value of e-business growing tremendously from N393bn in 2014 to about N2.4trn currently, the resultant effect was the low printing of cash as the reduction in the use of cash as a medium of exchange has led to an explosion in electronic businesses.

Speaking further, Obiora noted that “And so, if you look at this movement, you will realize that the central banks in the world are responding to yearnings of citizens which is why citizens in 96 per cent of Central banks in the world are either working on digital currencies or they have done so already.”

According to the CBN Annual Currency Operations report for 2020, it was disclosed that the apex bank spent the sum of N58.6 billion to print 2.52 billion Naira notes valued at N1.1 trillion.

The 2020 figure represented a significant decrease Year-on-Year as the bank spent N75.5 billion and N64.04 billion in 2019 and 2018 respectively for the same purpose.

In order to mitigate this needless spending on the printing of the Naira, the CBN headed by Godwin Emefiele had pushed for increased transactions on cashless platforms across the country and also, pushed for the introduction of the e-naira, a project the bank aims to use as an alternative for cash spending.