Ghana’s central bank is considering issuing a national digital currency called the e-cedi as a result of the growth in mobile money transactions.
The central bank is planning a pilot project for the e-cedi which could launch “in the near future” according to Bank of Ghana governor Ernest Addison.
The total value of all mobile money transactions in Ghana reached $29 billion in 2017, compared to $6.5 billion in 2015.
Around 1.4 billion mobile money transactions were made in 2018, up from 982 million in 2017.
Ghana is one of Africa’s leading economies, with a GDP growth rate of around 6.3 percent in 2018. Adopting a national digital currency would align with the government’s efforts to maintain a digital financial landscape, Weetracker reports.
Earlier in 2019, South Africa’s central bank announced that it was doing a digital currency feasibility project and in August Rwanda revealed that it was researching how to offer an official digital currency.
Ghana is the third African country to show an interest in a digital currency this year.
Other digital currencies launched in Africa have experienced mixed results.
In 2015, Tunisia became the first country in the world to issue a blockchain-based national currency, the eDinar. Similar to cash, the eDinar distribution and issuance is regulated by a governmental body, La Poste.
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Two years after the eDinar was introduced, 700,000 virtual accounts were active. That was a good start but represents a small percentage of the 11.5 million Tunisian population, according to The Carnegie Middle East Center.
Senegal issued its blockchain-based eCFA in 2017. The eCFA was supposed to be rolled out in other West African countries including Ivory Coast, Niger, Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso if it was deemed to be successful. That has not happened yet.
Rwandan authorities are gathering information and studying the experiences of central banks in Canada, Singapore, and the Netherlands, that have tested blockchain technology.
Cryptos goes so far as to say that Senegal’s attempt at a state-sponsored cryptocurrency has “failed miserably”.
