BoG announces winners of maiden e-Cedi hackathon

BoG announces winners of maiden e-Cedi hackathon

The Bank of Ghana has announced winners of the first-ever e-Cedi hackathon.

The competition aimed to encourage innovation and build partnerships around the central bank’s new digital currency, the e-Cedi.

Out of 88 initial applicants, 10 finalists were selected to demonstrate their e-Cedi solutions and compete for the prize money. The hackathon covered areas like agriculture, government payments, business transactions, taxation and more.

The judges selected Forward Titans for the top prize, followed by Nokofio as first runner-up and Paycode as second runner-up. Forward Titans took home a GH?500,000 cash award, while the others received GH¢300,000 and GH¢ 200,000 respectively. The other top-10 finalists include, AgroEcedi, Applicase, David Archer, Libeara X SCB Ghana, Moolre, Team Auto Cedi and Team CreditLink.

Bank of Ghana Governor Dr. Ernest Addison, highlighting the competition’s importance said: “The e-Cedi Hackathon’s benefits are far bigger than the award. Your solutions can be mainstreamed subject to further refinement”.

He encouraged participants to continue innovating whether they won or not.

The e-Cedi aims to promote financial inclusion, payment efficiency and safety, and support Ghana’s digital economy. Dr. Addison explained: “Co-creating e-Cedi use cases with innovators, developers, user experience experts and financial service providers is deemed a better and more feasible approach to making the digital currency appealing to diverse user groups”.

He added that the hackathon represents an ongoing spirit of collaboration around the e-Cedi. “Despite the progress made, much remains to be done in meeting the financial service needs of every citizen in meaningful ways. This therefore calls for an innovative mindset, creativity and collaboration in exploring novel solutions – of which a central bank digital currency is promising.”

The Bank of Ghana has invested heavily in financial oversight technology as well. Dr. Addison highlighted, “We have had central banks come from South Africa, Egypt, Barbados, Zambia and Solomon Islands to learn from us”.

He closed by emphasising the importance of adapting to new technologies like AI, stating: “Despite the dizzying speed of such innovations, it is a force for good and a key determinant of our development trajectory. Therefore, our ability to appreciate, adopt and adapt to technology will help position the financial services industry to drive national development efforts”.

The e-Cedi hackathon marks a milestone in Ghana’s digital currency efforts. Policymakers hope the competition will drive future e-Cedi innovation to support financial access and digital transformation across the country.

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