Ghana Moves into Advanced Stage of Developing Official CBDC

Ernest Addison, the present Governor of the Bank of Ghana, informs that the bank is now in an advanced stage of developing Ghana’s national CBDC. He also informs that a three-phase testing process is required to be fulfilled before ‘e-cedi’, which is the CBDC named for Ghana, will be issued publicly for sale and purchase.

Crypto adoption as well as its usage in the whole African region is extraordinary. Countries such as Nigeria and Ghana are amongst the top countries in Africa where crypto adoption is at its highest. However, some three months ago, the Nigerian crypto industry is under immense pressure created by the Government. But the situation in Ghana is different from Nigeria.

It was announced lately by the Central Bank of Ghana that the bank should immediately start working on the national CBDC. For this purpose, the bank also constituted several teams within the bank who were to cooperate with the tech companies for the development of CBDC. The tech companies were accordingly short-listed and the job was duly entrusted to the short-listed tech company.

A fintech conference was held in Ghana in which the Governor of the Bank of Ghana was the chief guest. At the time of his address to the participants, Addison talked about Ghan’s project of CBDC and its development stage. Addison told that the Bank of Ghana has always been the first one to adopt financial innovations within African central banks. He said that the bank would want to continue its custom to be the first African central bank in encouraging revolutionary financial technologies.

He appreciated the fact that Ghana was the pioneer state who announced the development of national CBDC in the African region. Addison told that Ghana’s CBDC project namely “e-cedi” is in its final stages of development. After its development, e-cedi will undergo a three-phase testing process, said Addison. Once the required tests are passed, only then the e-cedi will be made available to the public for its sale and purchase.

It was reported in Ghana also that while Addison was addressing in the conference, digital cedi had already passed the initial phase. This meant that the design of e-cedi has been duly approved and sanctioned by the Bank of Ghana along with the Government.

Regard the testing phase, Addison apprised that in the first test, members from the general public will be given e-cedi initially. The distribution will be done by a mobile application, which will be developed for the exclusive purposes of e-cedi’s testing. In addition, already existing mobile apps in Ghana will also be provided with e-cedi for testing purposes.

If the e-cedi is able to pass this initial test, the bank will then be able to assess national CBDC’s feasibility, told Addison.