Reserve Bank of Australia forms collaborations to research CBDC. The financial institution will collaborate with the Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, the financial services firm Perpetual, and the software company ConsenSys on a project to explore the possible use of a wholesale central bank digital currency in the country using “Ethereum-based distributed ledger technology,” according to a Nov. 2 announcement from The Reserve Bank of Australia or RBA.
The RBA announced that it would investigate the development of a proof-of – concept for “the issuance of a CBDC tokenized form.” It explicitly specified that wholesale market participants might use the digital currency on a DLT platform for tokenized syndicated loans and explore the consequences of delivery-to-payment security settlements with cross-chain atomic swaps.
“With this project we are aiming to explore the implications of a CBDC for efficiency, risk management and innovation in wholesale financial market transactions,” stated Reserve Bank of Australia Assistant Governor Michele Bullock.
“While the case for the use of a CBDC in these markets remains an open question, we are pleased to be collaborating with industry partners to explore if there is a future role for a wholesale CBDC in the Australian payments system,” he added.
The move is part of an ongoing about-face for the RBA when it comes to CBDC policy. On Oct. 14, the head of payments policy at the RBA said the bank would continue to research CBDCs despite the financial institution stating there was not a strong policy case for issuing one in September.
The bank has pointed to the success of the country’s successful, real-time New Payments Platform as an alternative to issuing a CBDC, and indicated that it is willing to provide access to fiat banknotes “for as long as Australians want to continue using them.” The central bank has said that the project will be completed by the end of the year and a report will be released in 2021.
[image: Wikimedia Commons]
