This week the Bank of Ghana hosted its fintech conference, the 3i Africa Summit, where the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) played a significant role. The two countries have been working on a cross border pilot involving Ghana’s eCedi central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stablecoins. However, its core focus is to enable SMEs in Ghana to trade with SMEs in Singapore. It uses a combination of verifiable credentials, CBDC and purpose bound money as part of Project DESFT (Digital Economy Semi-Fungible Token).
Maxwell Opoku-Afari, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana, underscored the pivotal role of SMEs in Ghana’s economy. They make up 90% of businesses, 80% of employment and 60% of GDP, a trend mirrored in other African countries. “SMEs are the binding constraints to growth,” he said. “And if we’re able to unlock that constraint, then we will begin to see how growth can be broad-based, inclusive, and shared – to be able to lift everybody up. Using digitalization has become the way to unlock that binding constraint.”
In the first phase, the two countries established what Ghana referred to as a financial trust corridor. This involved creating a whitelist of SMEs at each central bank so the SMEs could work with each other.
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