Ghana had announced that it would be launching a new digital currency called the e-cedi.
The Bank of Ghana however, is set to begin the pilot phase for the first digital currency known as the ‘e-cedi’ by September 2021.
According to Dr. Ernest Addison, the governor of the country’s central bank, the new proposed digital currency will go into effect after three pilot stages confirm it to be a positive thing to introduce into the local economy.
“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 at a news conference in Accra.
Currently, the e-cedi has completed the first phase of the process where the design has been made and finalized by a centralized committee. Right now, the digital currency is in a limited implementation phase, meaning that some online transactions will accept the digital currency if it’s applied to the payment.
First Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Maxwell Opoku Afari informed the media that this new currency will shape the use of other digital currencies just like the cryptocurrency.
He went on to explain that “it is cash on its own which means it will not be backed by any money but just like the normal paper cash”.
