TL;DR Breakdown
- Ghana seeks to launch its own CBDC, wants to promote it among every Ghanan.
- The authorities are looking to initiate offline capabilities for unbanked citizens.
Ghana has been actively exploring the possibilities of launching the new CBDC in the country, i.e., the e-cedi. The goal of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) is to promote the adoption of the e-cedi among all the citizens of the nation who are unbanked, i.e., do not have access to banking services.
During the Ghana Economic Forum, Kwame Oppong, the head of the fintech and innovation at the BoG, revealed that the officials are looking to explore the possibilities regarding e-cedi and offline transactions. Kwame revealed that the e-cedi can surely be used for offline transfers in the near future.
Bank of Ghana to provide services to the unbanked
According to Kwame Oppong, the launch of the e-cedi for offline transactions will help those citizens who don’t have enough electricity resources or live in poor connectivity. The unbanks citizens will also be able to have their monetary existence with the help of e-cedi.
“The e-cedi would also be capable of being used in an offline environment through some smart cards.”
Kwame Oppong
The head of the fintech at the BoG further stated that there will be smart cards issued by the authorities, allowing the easy implementation of offline transactions using the e-cedi. These cards will be available to every citizen.
The smart card system
The smart card will allow the citizens of the nation to transfer their CBDCs through a pre-loaded balance, thus enabling offline transfers. This would be convenient for users with less connectivity and poor electricity supply.
This system will benefit a lot of Ghanans as, according to the study conducted by World Bank, around 84% of the entire population were living in regions with good electricity connections while just 53% of the population had access to internet connectivity.
Widespread demand for CBDCs
The demand for CBDCs keeps getting higher as a number of countries are looking into these digital currencies. In the recent G7 Summit, the financial authorities from the 7 nations decided to meet to discuss the regulation and launch of central bank digital currencies.
One of the members of the G7, the UK has been actively researching more about CBDCs. The formation of the Digital Pound Foundation represents the spiked interest of citizens as well as private sector individuals in CBDCs.
