Ghana to launch offline transactions for upcoming CBDC
The African country of Ghana has announced it has been working to develop its offline capacities for its upcoming central bank digital currency (CBDC) for promoting its usage all across different segments of Ghanan society.
As per an October 18 report broadcasted by Bloomberg, Bank of Ghana’s Head of Fintech and Innovation, Kwame Oppong, has recent;y revealed that the country’s digital currency “e-cedi” would enable offline transactions during the Ghana Economic Forum.
Oppong has also stressed that the forthcoming offline functionality would let Ghanans who lack access to digital connectivity and electricity would now be able to utilize the CBDC efficiently.
He said that the e-cedi would also be able to run in an offline environment with the help of smart cards.
The smart card is a credit card size plastic chip that lets users conduct transactions through pre-loaded account balances. A very similar system of usage has made it to trails at Oxfam for facilitating payments with decentralized stable coin DAI. This would provide relief from environmental disasters.
As per 2019 data from World Bank, 84 per cent of Ghanans had stable electricity connections while only 53 per cent had internet accessibility.
In August 2021, the Bank of Ghana disclosed its partnershi[ with the Giesecke+Devrient (G+D), a German financial fund, for piloting CBDC retail in Ghana.
The announcement was made only a month after the Vice President of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia had advocated embracing of digital wallets and currencies for the African governments in order to bolster trade across the continent at the backdrop of the Fifth Ghana International Trade and Finance Conference in July.
Chainalysis reports that the local adoption of decentralized cryptocurrencies in Ghana is on the rise as Africa’s crypto market peaks to 1,200 per cent more since 2020 as of September data.
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