By Robert A. Emmanuel
Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) Timothy Antoine stated that there’s a need for a stronger merchant network as the ECCB seeks to boost the use of its digital currency in Antigua and Barbuda.
During a media briefing last week Friday, the Governor indicated that the digital currency had struggled to make headway in the twin island state, as most of its user base is located in Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
The digital currency (DCash) was the pilot project of the ECCB, with the aim of supplementing existing physical cash options with the ability to purchase goods and services by sending and receiving digital currency payments.
Governor Antoine spoke about the challenges which need to be addressed by the ECCB.
“One of the key things is that we have to have more merchants to give customers more options to buy and sell, so we have to build out our merchant network.
“We also have to make sure that we provide the e-commerce potential for small businesses, so later this year we will announce some refinements to DCash to make it more accessible to customers,” he said.
The low public interest in the digital currency was such an issue for the Central Bank that Antigua and Barbuda marketing agency, the Marketing Machine, was contracted to boost the programme’s visibility.
The Governor revealed that a sales team will also be hired to supplement the efforts of the Marketing Machine.
“We are working on getting some business sales teams on the ground because marketing have to be supported by sales … so we have some people shortlisted and we working through that list to make some decisions on that,” he said.
The governor said his organisation takes some of the blame for the lack of complementary services to boost the visibility of DCash, including the merchant network, arguing that they were more focussed on the development of the product than the implementation at the time when it was first proposed.
“People want to have a safe option … we want people to transact, day or night, in any part of the country with the knowledge that they can transact without holding large amounts of physical cash,” Governor Antoine stated.