The Australian central bank kicks off trials with CBDCs and stablecoins in the wholesale financial market.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has announced the launch of a new experimental phase involving Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), stablecoins, and bank deposit tokens to explore the potential of digital money in wholesale financial markets.
The trial marks the second phase of Project Acacia, a joint initiative between the RBA and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre, launched in November last year. The goal is to understand how CBDCs and tokenization could improve efficiency within Australian financial markets.
The pilot program will involve a range of organizations, from local fintech startups to the country’s major banks, testing 24 different use cases. Of these, 19 will involve real money, while five will be proof-of-concept projects based on simulated transactions.
Three of Australia’s four largest banks are actively participating in the pilot: Commonwealth Bank (CBA), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), and Westpac Banking Corporation.
Commonwealth Bank will work alongside JPMorgan to assess how digital currencies and collateral registries could offer greater efficiency, liquidity, and reduced risk in the repo market. Sophie Gilder, managing director of blockchain and digital assets at CBA, noted that the repo market — given its crucial role in liquidity management and monetary policy implementation — is an ideal starting point for this kind of exploration.
ANZ will lead a use case trial for tokenized trade debts, aiming to address working capital and cash flow challenges faced by suppliers. The bank will also run a use case involving tokenized fixed-income securities, exploring a wholesale CBDC as tokenized settlement money to facilitate credit and liquidity settlement without counterparty risk.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the country’s market regulator, has granted participants exemptions from certain regulations to enable testing of assets not currently covered by existing legislation.
Kate O’Rourke, ASIC Commissioner, stated that the agency “sees valuable applications for the technologies underpinning digital assets in wholesale markets.”
The trial phase is set to last six months, with results to be published in the first quarter of 2026. Tests will cover a diverse range of asset classes, including fixed income, private markets, trade credit, carbon credits, and new applications for bank accounts held with the RBA.
