The PoC was a component of Project Desft (Digital Economy Semi-Fungible Token), an investigation by the Bank of Ghana and Singapore's Monetary Authority into how technology may increase the involvement of micro, small, and medium-sized businesses from developing nations in global commerce.

Maxwell Opoku-Afari, the first deputy governor of the "Project Desft is aimed at supporting SMEs in Africa to engage in international trade by removing significant obstacles they face, such as establishing trust with overseas trade partners and obtaining support in cross-border payments and supply chain finance."

The initiative has been concentrating on cross-border trading between the two countries with the use of purpose-bound money, the Singaporean Dollar stablecoin, the Ghanaian CBDC (eCedi), and the UN-developed, blockchain-based Universal Trusted Credential.

For the CBDC portion, local commercial lender Fidelity Bank provided banking and exchange services, while Giesecke+Devrient supplied its Filia platform.

The PoC, according to G+D, showed a direct transfer between the parties involved in the transaction, doing away with the requirement for a lengthy chain of middlemen and the associated high expenses associated with cross-border payments.

"This proof of concept demonstrated how multiple challenges of international trade could be solved: programmable payments, foreign currency exchange, and interoperability with cross-border payment and credentials platforms," says Wolfram Seidemann, CEO of G+D Currency Technology. This is an excellent illustration of how CBDC may stimulate economic expansion, particularly in the SME sector."