Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is advocating for a policy shift away from the pursuit of a single currency for African countries.
According to him, interconnected payment platforms, such as interoperable Mobile Money services, offer a more practical solution for bridging the financial divide and enhancing intra-African trade.
Historically, African leaders have concentrated on achieving macroeconomic stability across the continent as a prerequisite for a common currency.
However, Dr Bawumia argues that, Africa’s challenges in meeting the economic convergence criteria necessary for a unified currency indicate that a seamless payment system can be better realized through financial interoperability.
He pointed out that, the concept of a common currency, proposed in 1963, has been overshadowed by the advancements in digital payments.
“Making mobile money interoperable allows our citizens across the continent to trade seamlessly and so this is where I believe as African countries we need to focus on. One of the common problems of achieving a common currency was the difficulty of our respective countries in achieving the macro-economic convergence.”
“The idea of a common currency which came in 1963 has really been overtaken by the digital payment age that today you can think about mobile money as a common currency. If we make it interoperable, we don’t need to have the common currency before we get the benefits,” Dr. Bawumia said.
Dr. Bawumia made these remarks as the guest speaker at the Continental Mobile Interoperability Symposium, organized by the Africa Prosperity Network in Accra.
The symposium was held under the theme “Scaling-up Interoperability: Using Mobile Money to Buy and Sell.”
“I believe that If we are serious about it, we can work towards mobile money Interoperability at the continental stage and, therefore, we should move away in this regard from the macro-economic convergence criteria to digital payment convergence criteria,” the Vice President added.
The Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison, also emphasized the importance of a harmonized regulatory framework and partnerships among digital stakeholders to achieve broad financial inclusion and inter-African trade.
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