Nigeria Limits Cash Withdrawals in CBDC Push

Nigeria’s central bank is capping cash withdrawals for individuals to $224 a week

article-image

Maksym Kapliuk/Shutterstock.com

share

The Central Bank of Nigeria is attempting to drum up the use of its central bank digital currency, or CBDC, by enforcing limits on the amount of cash citizens can withdraw from their local banks.

Nigeria’s central bank asked deposit banks and financial institutions to cap over-the-counter maximum cash withdrawals for individuals to $224 a week, in a directive issued on Tuesday, 

Corporate organizations’ free withdrawals will also be limited to $1,154 per week, the bank said. Withdrawals above those limits will attract processing fees of 5% and 10% respectively. 

“Customers should be encouraged to use alternative channels…to conduct their banking transactions,” the bank said. Those include internet banking, mobile banking apps, debit cards and the country’s CBDC, the eNaira, among other means.

Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele conceded in October that his institution couldn’t account for the use of 85% of Nigeria’s cash in circulation, Bloomberg reported. That, in effect, was jeopardizing monetary policy across the cash-hungry nation of Africa’s largest economy, he said at the time.

The West African nation has also struggled to deal with individuals hoarding cash as it attempts to counter illegal activity, including theft and kidnappings.

Under the directive, a $44 per day limit would apply to those individuals seeking to withdraw from ATMs while over-the-counter third-party checks exceeding $112 would not be accepted.

In rare circumstances, where individuals or organizations require cash for “legitimate” purposes, a limit of $11,226 and $22,452 will apply respectively. 

Those will also be limited to one withdrawal per month and subject to rigorous identification and document requests including presenting a driver’s license and approval by the bank authorizing the withdrawal, among other things.

Nigeria became the first African nation to launch a retail central bank digital currency in October 2021, with a design aimed at complementing physical cash but not replacing it entirely.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

The Stripe-acquired firm has big plans for a streamlined, multi-wallet future

article-image

Both founders of the former crypto lender have now landed in new crypto industry roles

article-image

Bitcoin’s recent peak is a victory lap for curvers left and right

article-image

Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo says institutions are eager to get exposure to tokenization

article-image

Trade isn’t war and prosperity isn’t a contest