Veep urges financial services to take advantage of digital infrastructure
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has urged solution developers and innovators in the financial services industry to take advantage of the massive investment the government has made in digital infrastructure.
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He said the innovators must leverage the expansion of digital infrastructure to come up with products and solutions that would help improve financial inclusion and also help solve the challenges of the country.
Speaking at the e-Cedi Hackathon Awards Dinner last Thursday, Dr Bawumia said the government had over the past few years made a lot of investment to lay a solid foundation for the digital transformation of the economy.
He mentioned some of them as the National Identification Card, the digital address system, the E-government services, the national payment and the digital financial services platforms.
The Vice-President added that the backbone of all the interventions was a robust broadband infrastructure.
Commenting on the E-Cedi, Dr Bawumia said he was excited about the prospects of harnessing the power of technology to address the developmental challenges of the country.
He said it was commendable that the government was doing that through collaboration with imaginative solution developers, innovators, user experience designers, consumer insight experts and financial service providers.
“This evening’s programme is more than an award ceremony, it is a celebration of our capacity to co create innovative solutions that respond to diverse needs of the Ghanaian society by leveraging the tools of digital technology,” he stated.
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E-Cedi Hackathon
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) earlier this year announced the E-Cedi Hackathon, with an invitation for proposals which targeted innovative ideas that leverage Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) tokens and Application Programming Interface (APIs) to prototype solutions or develop tools that will promote the use of eCedi across the various sectors of the economy and with diverse payment scenarios.
Forward Titans emerged as the overall winners of the hackathon and for their reward they walked away with a cash prize of GH¢500,000.
Nokofio and Pay Code emerged as the first and second runners-up and for their reward, they took home cash prizes of GH¢300,000 and GH¢200,000 respectively.
At the close of the submission of the innovation concept note (ICN) on October 20, 2023, 88 ICNs were received, the number was pruned and 62 pitched their solution.
After the pitch, 10 innovations were considered eligible for progression to the Demonstration Day.
The dinner was, therefore, to climax the hackathon and select an overall winner.
Dr Bawumia congratulated all the participants for their innovative ideas and familiarity with the challenges of the Ghanaian economy.
Financial inclusiveness
The Governor of the BoG, Dr Ernest Addison, for his part, said the central bank had in the past few years championed policies and implemented financial market infrastructure that had created a supportive environment for the digital delivery of financial services.
He said currently the financial sector could boast a variety of digital financial services, including payment, credit, savings and investment products that were offered by banks and FinTechs.
He noted that new business models have also emerged through FinTech channels and removed barriers to micro-credit as well as paved way for affordable and convenient inward remittance services.
Dr Addison said these interventions have fostered financial inclusion in the country, evidenced by the phenomenal improvement in financial access from 41 per cent in 2014 to 68 per cent in 2021, according to the Global Findex Report of the World Bank.