Ghana Central Bank governor Ernest Addison confirmed his institution is now in the advanced stages of introducing a digital currency known as “e-cedi.” However, before going into circulation, the digital currency must first go through three phases.
Speaking in a news conference last May 31, Addison also said the Bank of Ghana would like to maintain its reputation as Africa’s leader when it comes to embracing emerging financial technologies such as digital currencies.
“The Bank of Ghana was one of the first African Central Banks to declare that we were working on a digital currency looking at the concept of an e-cedi,” said the bank governor.
Before the anticipated release
Addison explained the key phases the e-cedi would need to go through before being released to the public for general consumption.
The CBDC has actually gone through the first phase already, which is the design of the electric money. After this, as the institutional leader explained, it will move to the implementation stage.
After the implementation phase, there will be “a pilot phase where few people would be able to use the digital cedi on mobile applications and other apps that are currently running,” continued Addison in his series of explanations.
Comparing e-cedi with bitcoin
In the same news conference, the Bank of Ghana governor compared the e-cedi to unregulated cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin which he termed as “too volatile to play the function of money.”
He believes there is a lot more emphasis on looking at digital money which is backed by state and central banks. Private forms of money, such as bitcoin, are not able to perform monetary functions effectively.
Meanwhile, with Ghana’s update, it now belongs to the list of only a few countries in the African continent that have taken concrete steps towards this goal as many other states are yet to make similar progress.
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