Ghana is becoming a member of the ranks of countries eyeing the launch of a central financial institution foreign digital currency.
The governor of the West African nation’s central financial institution, Ernest Addison, stated Tuesday that Ghana may situation a digital type of the nation’s foreign money, the cedi, in the “close to future” and is in talks to develop a pilot venture in a “sandbox surroundings.”
Addison’s remarks, made at Ghana’s Annual Banking Convention, had been disclosed in a public transcript.
The Bank of Ghana governor stated Ghana is present process speedy digitization and has a burgeoning cellular banking sector pushed by cell phones. “Cellular cash” transfers elevated by 70 p.c from 2017 to 2018, he stated.
In a transfer to harness that sector, Addison stated he had licensed the central financial institution to situation cellular cash backed 1:1 by cedi and held in digital wallets on Monday – a day earlier than his digital foreign money announcement.
Nonetheless, he stated the cellular cash could be totally different from cryptocurrency, in response to Ghanaian information web site MyJoyOnline.
“It’s simply digital cash backed by foreign money,” Addison reportedly stated of the cellular cash on the banking occasion’s press convention.
“So [the central bank] cannot create cash; they’re solely having an digital illustration of the cedi that the Bank of Ghana places into circulation. So it’s not crypto.”
The know-how behind Addison’s proposed “e-cedi” digital foreign money is as but unclear. CoinDesk has reached out to the Bank of Ghana for clarification and can replace this text if we hear again.
As has been broadly reported, China’s central financial institution is effectively on the best way to launching its digital yuan, saying on Monday that it’s going to initially be used to facilitate retail funds.
Different nations and areas, too, are investigating launching their very own digital currencies, together with the EU and the U.S, in a bid to not be left behind by China and personal initiatives just like the Fb-led Libra venture.
Source: Sunriseread.com
