CBDC Round Up

CBDCs a Low Priority in Africa

A paper published by the Munich Personal RePEc Archive has carried out secondary research on Africa’s adoption of CBDCs ¹. While 38 of Africa’s 54 central banks have not made announcements about CBDCs, Nigeria has issued one and Ghana, Mauritius, South African and Tunisia have pilot projects. In addition, Angola, Eswatini, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe are studying and researching CBDCs.

The paper attributes the relatively low level of interest in CBDCs to a lack of a robust payment system, low use of digital payments, central banks’ focus on other priorities, fear of failure, lack of government interest in digital currency and concerns about CBDC privacy risk and security threats.