tl;dr
Australia’s Reserve Bank (RBA) is advancing Project Acacia to explore tokenized asset settlement in wholesale financial markets. The project, involving 24 use cases from fintechs to major banks, tests digital money forms including stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and a pilot wholesale central bank ...
Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), is advancing its tokenized asset settlement research with the next phase of Project Acacia. The project has selected 24 innovative use cases from fintech startups to major banks to explore how digital money and tokenization can enhance wholesale financial markets. These include 19 pilot use cases involving real money and assets, alongside five proof-of-concept cases using simulated transactions, spanning asset classes such as fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits.
Launched in November 2024 as a collaboration between the RBA and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), with support from ASIC, APRA, and the Australian Treasury, Project Acacia aims to test various settlement assets. These include stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), alongside new approaches for banks’ existing exchange settlement accounts. Major Australian banks like Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, and Westpac are active participants in this phase.
The pilot wholesale CBDC will be issued across diverse distributed ledger technology platforms such as Hedera, Redbelly Network, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect, and Ethereum-compatible networks. Brad Jones, Assistant Governor at the RBA, emphasized the project’s role in enhancing the future of money and improving the functioning of Australia’s wholesale financial markets through innovation in digital payments and infrastructure.
Over the next six months, these use cases will be tested, with findings expected in early 2026. The results will guide the RBA’s ongoing efforts to modernize Australia’s financial system for the digital age. Regulators like ASIC are providing support and regulatory relief to facilitate the project, acknowledging the potential to reshape financial services and promote economic growth.
Professor Talis Putnins of DFCRC highlighted the potential economic benefits, estimating possible gains of AUD 19 billion annually from improvements in markets and cross-border payments. He noted that testing real money settlement models, including issuance of wholesale CBDC on third-party platforms, marks a world-first achievement for Australia in this emerging field.
Project Acacia initially involved public consultation to gather input on privately issued digital currencies and CBDCs. It seeks to innovate wholesale markets by enabling new forms of digital money and infrastructure, focusing on third-party blockchain issuance rather than direct central bank issuance. This approach could enable cross-network settlements and asset interoperability, enhancing efficiency and resilience in wholesale payments and cross-border transactions.
As Project Acacia moves forward, its experiments with deposit tokens, stablecoins, and reserve-backed digital currencies aim to unlock new possibilities for tokenized asset markets, positioning Australia at the forefront of digital financial innovation.