Bank of Ghana to introduce digital currency called E-cedi

Pulse Staff

June 2, 2021 8:17 PM

The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Ernest Addison, has disclosed that the central bank will soon introduce a digital currency.

BoG governor, Dr. Ernest Addison

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, May 31, Dr. Addison said the BoG is in advanced stages of introducing the e-cedi.

He also stated that the digital currency will go through three phases before it goes into circulation.

According to the governor of the central bank, at the final stage, a pilot would determine whether the digital currency will be feasible before it goes into circulation.

"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," Dr Addison said.

"Yes, we are quite advanced in that process. As you know, with these types of things, you have to go at it in phases and the first phase was really on the design of the electronic money and the team that has gone quite far in the design phase, they are looking at the implementation phase.

"After the implementation phase, we have a pilot phase where a few people would be able to use the digital cedi on the mobile applications and other applications that are currently running.

"From that pilot, we will be able to determine whether this is feasible and what sort of things need to be tweaked to make it work effectively".

E-cedi will be less volatile than Bitcoin.

He also reiterated a warning to the public that the activities of cryptocurrencies were currently not regulated because of their volatility.

Graphic newspaper in a previous report opined that Dr Addison said cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin were too volatile to play the function of money hence the need for a state-backed digital currency such as the e-cedi.

Pulse Staff

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