Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) in Africa: Why CBDCs Could be A ‘Disaster’ for the Continent

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are been designed a ‘new normal’ for the world of finance in which payments (digital currency) can be made directly from one party to another without financial intermediaries regardless macroeconomic links. Digital currency has ushered into uncharted waters as central banks and international institutions crumble fine their feet’s fast moving stream decentralised (DeFi) global stablecoins. As embark on CBDCs journey, there number questions must address: What problems CBDC’s expected solve? How do current design thinking resolve these Africa? Are alternatives Africa ? Broadly, inefficient costly domestic cross-border settlement, ensure price stability stability, retain monetary policy independence de-dollarization. A qualitative descriptive adopted this study.Findings. well-designed new multilateral fair just architecture potential both advanced developing economies general, but more importantly would enable countries regain some among independence. However, under within framework existing architecture, no economy withstand powers BigFintech, DeFi, stablecoins foreign sovereign currencies. This paper concludes that African decide whether cede power an independent authority with single manage control or economic destiny unaccountable BigFintech and/or form dollarization. Keywords: currency, CBDCs, dollarization, system, DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/12-18-03 Publication date: September 30 th 2021