Australia has unveiled a three-year initiative to explore the potential of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) with a focus on wholesale CBDC opportunities, industry outreach and regulatory improvements, Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), told the audience at an industry event in September.
Australia’s digital money work plan will kickstart with the public launch of Project Acacia, an initiative focusing on assessing the feasibility of new forms of digital money and settlement infrastructure to improve the efficiency, transparency and resilience of wholesale markets. This project will build on the lessons learnt from Australia’s CBDC pilot in 2023 and may involve cross-border applications with regional central banks, Jones said.
Following Project Acacia, the RBA will launch industry and academic CBDC advisory forums in H1 2025 covering retail and wholesale CBDC issues. These events will be designed to foster dialogue with the industry and academia on CBDC matters, helping the RBA and the Department of the Treasury better understand the different monetary policy issues related to digital money, he said.
The third initiative, to begin in 2025, will involve introducing legislative reforms to enhance Australia’s regulatory sandbox and clarify the regulatory arrangements for stablecoins and other types of digital assets. These reforms will be designed to facilitate financial innovation, including solutions involving digital money and infrastructure, and will be implemented based on feedbacks and suggestions from the community, Jones said.
Finally, from H2 2025 through 2027, the RBA and the Department of the Treasury will shift focus to retail CBDC. These last phases will include engagement with the public on retail CBDC and the launch of a series of “deliberate workshops” on retail CBDC with the Australian community, Jones said. They will also include the release of a follow-up report on retail CBDC. This report, to be released in 2027, will include updated feedbacks from community engagement and will allow the regulator to conduct further research into the implications of different design options of a potential retail CBDC system, Jones said.
A focus on wholesale markets
The RBA, in collaboration with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), completed in August 2023 a joint research project on CBDC. The project involved the central bank issuing a limited-scale pilot CBDC, representing a real legal claim on the RBA, which was used by select industry participants to demonstrate how a CBDC could enhance payment and settlement services for Australian households and businesses.
According to the RBA, the project yielded valuable insights into how a CBDC in Australia, possibly alongside other innovations in digital money, could be used to improve the capabilities of the payments system. Programmable payments, atomic settlement in tokenized asset markets and offline payments were highlighted as the areas where tokenized money could add value.
Furthering its exploration of CBDC, the RBA subsequently released in September 2024 a new report which summarizes research to date. The report concludes that a wholesale CBDC, alongside other forms of digital money and infrastructure upgrades, could significantly enhance the functioning of Australia’s wholesale markets with tangible benefits.
The next key policy questions revolve around the best ways to support tokenization in wholesale markets, particularly regarding the roles of the public and private sectors. One option involves public-sector-led issuance of a wholesale CBDC or upgrading existing infrastructure to support tokenized settlement using exchange settlement account (ESA) balances. Another path involves private sector-led innovations in digital money and new forms of ledger development. Finally, a third path involves a hybrid of official and private sector innovations in digital money and supporting infrastructure.
When it comes to retail CBDC, however, the RBA says that a clear public interest case has yet to emerge because Australians are generally well served by the capabilities and resilience of the current retail payments system. Nonetheless, the RBA says the government remains open to reassessing this stance over time.