Australia takes another step toward a central bank digital currency

Australia's central bank said on Thursday it was taking another major step toward a wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) with a range of industry partners pursuing projects using real money and assets for the first time.

The Reserve Bank of Australia said its "Project Acacia" initiative would test 19 pilot cases involving money and assets, along with five proof-of-concept use cases involving simulated transactions.

The trials involve a range of asset classes, including fixed income, private markets, trade receivables and carbon credits. Proposed settlement assets include CBDCs, stablecoins and bank deposit tokens, as well as new ways of using commercial banks' existing deposits at the RBA.

The platforms include Hedera, Redbelly, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect and other compatible networks. Testing will occur over the next six months, with a report due in the first half of next year, the RBA said.

"The use cases selected in this project will help us to better understand how innovations in central bank and private digital money, alongside payments infrastructure, might help to uplift the functioning of wholesale financial markets in Australia," said Brad Jones, an RBA assistant governor overseeing the financial system.

The RBA is concentrating on wholesale uses for a digital currency, having decided there was no economic benefit in an official retail cryptocurrency.

According to the central bank, the benefits of a wholesale CBDC include reducing counterparty and operational risks, freeing up collateral, increasing transparency and auditability and reducing costs for institutions and customers.