The Bank of Namibia is set to explore Ghana’s financial inclusion strategy, with the aim of implementing some of the measures in rural areas across the country.
This comes as the central banks from the two countries have agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding to cooperating on areas of financial inclusion in the informal economy and how rural areas of Namibia can be improved in terms of financial digital transformation.
BoN Governor Johannes !Gawaxab, who was on a courtesy visit to Ghana, said the West African country had done well in bringing the unbanked population into the formal economy.
“We have seen that the Bank of Ghana has wrestled with these issues, and you have not sat back and let the market sort itself out. You have innovated by providing practical solutions such as Ghana Pay which was recently launched as a mobile money service. Furthermore, your courageous move to explore CBDCs as a critical intervention to balance the interests of all economic agents is something worth learning from,” he said.
Ernest Addison, Ghana’s Central Bank Governor, said the bank established and implemented various measures including banking sector reforms, mobile money interoperability, and CBDCs, in response to some of these developments.
!Gawaxab emphasized the importance of formalizing cooperation with the Bank of Ghana in the spirit of the two countries’ excellent relations,.
He further explained challenges experienced in the informal economy and Namibians’ inability to access affordable and quality services primarily in rural areas.
BoN Director of Strategic Communications and International Relations, Kazembire Zemburuka, said the signing of the MoU comes after BoN conducted extensive research on how to improve financial inclusion in Namibia’s informal economy and rural areas, and wanted to compare notes given Ghana’s progress in this area.
This visit is part of the BoN’s efforts to strengthen collaboration and seek mutually beneficial relationships among African central banks.
Zemburuka said that separate meetings were also held to strengthen ties with the Governor of the Bank of Botswana, Moses Dinekere Pelaelo.
Additionally, he said given the advances in the fintech space, the Bank also intends to contact the Central Bank of Kenya.
“The discussions also aimed to compare notes on respective institutions’ digital transformation, digital currencies, fintech, and financial inclusion, among other emerging central banking topics. The importance of learning from one another through benchmarking was emphasized while also pursuing collaboration on relevant projects to aid cooperation on these and other topics.” said Zemburuka.
