Australia’s Central Bank Launches Central Bank Digital Currency Project

Australia’s central bank – The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) – announced on Tuesday that it was launching a research program that’ll be focused on a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for the country. The program will take place over the course of 12 months and will try to unravel the economic benefits of issuing a CBDC for the country.

For its quest, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) announced that it will be partnering with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) in the program. The Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre is a government-back industry group that is being funded by the Australian government and several key industry players and is pioneering research and commercialization for the emerging digital finance sector.

Per the apex bank, the project is looking to identify innovative cases and business models that could be supported by issuing a CBDC. The project is also looking to understand CBDCs from technological, legal, and regulatory perspectives. The program will see the development of a limited-scale CBDC pilot that will be tested and used in a controlled environment. Interest industry participants will be given room to develop specific use cases and demonstrate the usefulness and relevance of a CBDC in their sector. These industry players mainly have to demonstrate how a CBDC can be used to provide innovative and value-added payment and settlement services to households and businesses.

In a statement, the RBA’s Deputy Governor Michele Bullock said that “This project is an important next step in our research on CBDC. We are looking forward to engaging with a wide range of industry participants to better understand the potential benefits a CBDC could bring to Australia.”

Australia joins the growing list of countries/governments across the world that has either launched a CBDC or have embarked on efforts to launch one.