The Bank of Ghana (BOG) has stated the launch of the E-Cedi project has been delayed due to the economic challenges faced in 2022.

The BoG Governor Dr. Ernest Addison stated that although significant progress has been made in the development of the e-Cedi, the BOG has had to delay the launch due to high inflation rates and loss of currency value that occurred in 2022.

“In 2022, we had a very major dislocation of the economy,” he said at a press briefing on Monday.

“That is not the context in which you want to launch a digital currency. So, we had to slow down the process and refocus our efforts on the macro environment, trying to bring inflation down. At a certain point, we will go back to the e-Cedi project and decide on the launch date,” he added.

The pilot phase of the e-Cedi has been completed, with selected consumers at Sefwi Asafo in the Western North Region using the currency to buy items, goods, food, and services.

The BOG had also been using the fintech ExpressPay to also test the e-Cedi currency.

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) is digital cash that is designed to take on most traditional attributes of physical cash.

Eswatini, Kenya, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are all currently in the research stage of CBDC development (which means it has established working groups to explore the use case, impact, and feasibility of CBDC).