Banks must re-position for cryptocurrencies or risk collapsing – Klah

Tony Klah’s recommendation comes at a time where technology leads today’s world with innovations including the sudden rise of digital currencies which have slowly gained grounds since its inception about a decade ago.

According to the Tony Klah, banks need to identify and understand “what is coming and then re-position” themselves in a way that will allow businesses to operate and therefore also find relevance in this eco system.

His claim comes in contradiction to Bank of Ghana’s warning that trading and using the cryptocurrencies in the country is illegal and not recognized as a legitimate form of currency in the country.

According to the Governor of Ghana's central bank, Dr Ernest Addison the necessary regulations to support the use of bitcoin currently do not exist in the country.

All mediums of exchanges in the country must be approved by the Bank of Ghana and there is currently a Settlements and Payment Bill before Parliament which will cater for the use of cryptocurrencies in the future.

Speaking at a Digital business conference organized by Nobel International Business School (NiBS), the tech guru stressed that people will always be skeptical about block chains, cryptocurrencies in the areas of banking and finance and finance which may disturb the banks or eventually take the banks away.



Although Tony Klah agreed there will be a lot of disruption in the financial sectors, he argued that “this disruption shouldn’t be looked at as going to take the banks away.”

“I know for a fact that banks are not going to disappear,” he reiterated at the conference themed Blockchain, Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies; A Revolution or a Fad?

Challenging stakeholders who attended the session, Mr. Klah posed the following questions: “Who is going to give mortgages? Who is going to assist in start-ups, businesses- the banks certainly will be there. But then the traditional ways by which banks operate is not going to be around after a short while."

He was positive that their (banks) modus operandi will be quite different owing to the trend of the use of technology these days.

The Gr8Mind$@W0rk CEO believed that the banks will eventually adjust when a regulatory framework for blockchains and cryptocurrencies is established adding that they (banks) will resort to smart contracts in designing applications that will support financial freedom.