TransferWise has decided it can no longer offer Naira transfers. From today, April 15, users will not be able to make or accept payments using the Naira. They sent emails out to their customers announcing the move and I think it’s a bit tragic because it’s not been a year since they started accepting Naira transfers in the first place.
Email just received from @TransferWise. Stopping naira transfers to Nigeria effective today pic.twitter.com/3KchWPVxGo
— Ike Anya (@ikeanya) April 15, 2016
The Nigerian Naira and South African Rand were the only African currencies TransferWise supported, but now that we’ve been booted off the list of supported countries, we’re down to just the Rand. You don’t need a prophet to tell you that TransferWise stopped support for the Naira because of the sheer uncertainty of it all. As a result of fallen Oil prices, the Naira is worth a lot less than the CBN is pretending it is, and this dichotomy has created a wide gulf between “official” and “black market” rates.
To curb the demand for scarce Forex, the CBN tried to restrict the use of Naira cards abroad but it appears that’s not as much of a band-aid as they hoped. It’s going to be a long way to redemption. TransferWise is not a unique case though. Remember Uber?
Way to go, guys. We need to put the Nigerian economy in rice.
