Ghana’s Central Bank has issued a caution to Ghanaians against trading in digital currencies such as Bit coin.
Governor of the Ghana’s Central Bank Dr Ernest Addison said his outfit has not licensed the activities in digital currency under its laws.
It follows the recent upsurge in trading of the virtual currencies in the West African Country.
Responding to this issue at the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting on Monday in Accra, the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison said some progress has been made by his outfit regarding regulating digital currencies.
“The Bitcoin is a digital community currency that is being used to undertake global payments it is not a legal tender in this country hence people have to be conscious on their approach to that,” he stated.
Dr. Addison added, “We are looking at the new payments systems bill that will deal with the issue of digital and electronic money and that new bill will be passed by Parliament in the next few months. And then we hope that after the bill comes out, more modern forms of payments that are issued by banks and non-banks that would be registered by the Bank of Ghana would be covered by the laws and the regulatory purview of the bank.”
The value of one bitcoin shot up by almost 1,300% from $999 in January 2017 $13,800 on December 31, 2017.
About five countries have recently banned the virtual currency with south Korea becoming the latest country to do so.
Source: Africafeeds.com / Fred Dzakpata
