Joint Media Release Reserve Bank and Digital Finance CRC Complete CBDC Research Project

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) today released a report on the findings from a joint research project involving industry that explored potential use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia.

The project involved the RBA issuing a limited-scale ‘pilot’ CBDC that was a real legal claim on the RBA. The pilot CBDC was used by selected industry participants to demonstrate how a CBDC could be used to provide innovative payment and settlement services to Australian households and businesses. The various use cases explored in the project highlighted a range of areas where a CBDC could enhance the functioning of the payments system. At the same time, the project raised a number of legal, regulatory, technical and operational issues associated with a CBDC that warrant further consideration in future research.

Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the RBA said, ‘The project yielded valuable insights into how a CBDC, alongside other innovations in digital money, could potentially unlock benefits for the Australian financial system and the wider economy. It also highlighted the benefits of close engagement between industry and policymakers in exploring the opportunities and challenges associated with innovations in digital money. The key findings from the project will help to shape the next phase of the RBA’s research program into the future of money in Australia. Alongside our ongoing work on cross border payments, this will include deepening our understanding of the role that tokenised asset markets and programmable payments could have in the Australian economy.’

Dr Andreas Furche, CEO of the DFCRC, said, ‘The report underscores that innovation in finance is a continuous journey. The strong industry engagement in this project speaks to the importance of collaboration between central banks as ultimate issuers of national currency, and industry experts driving its potential use cases. As we move forward, our research on CBDC could look to target use cases where CBDC has the best potential to provide an infrastructure layer for further innovation in financial products and services.’

The RBA and DFCRC would like to extend their appreciation to the many industry participants who invested considerable time and effort in the project.

For more information about the project see: Australian CBDC Pilot Project.