RBA and DFCRC release findings from Project Acacia
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) today released a report
detailing the findings of Project Acacia – a joint initiative examining how innovations in digital money and settlement
infrastructure could support the development of wholesale tokenised asset markets in Australia.
The project was led by the RBA and the DFCRC in collaboration with industry participants, with support from the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), and the
Australian Treasury.
Conducted against a backdrop of growing global momentum in tokenised finance, Project Acacia identified the potential for
asset tokenisation – alongside innovations in digital money and settlement infrastructure – to enhance the efficiency,
functionality and resilience of Australia’s wholesale financial markets. The project also identified several challenges to scaling
tokenised markets that warrant deeper analysis by regulators and industry, including some that connect to the broader
environment for responsible financial innovation in Australia.
As part of the project, industry participants developed and tested 20 wholesale tokenised asset market use cases spanning
a range of asset classes. These use cases demonstrated potential benefits from tokenisation across the asset lifecycle from
issuance and servicing to trading and settlement. The use cases also explored multiple methods for settling tokenised asset
transactions using different forms of public and private digital money, including traditional RBA exchange settlement account
(ESA) balances, a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), tokenised commercial bank deposits and stablecoins.
Building on the momentum generated by Project Acacia, the report outlines a new multi-stream program aimed at advancing
responsible innovation in Australia’s wholesale financial markets. The program will focus on overcoming long standing co
ordination challenges, removing unnecessary barriers to the safe adoption of new technologies, and enabling industry
participants to explore and scale innovative approaches to uplifting wholesale market functioning in a manner consistent with
financial stability.
Key elements of the program, which will involve a range of stakeholders, include:
- Strengthened cooperation between industry and regulators
- Exploration of a new regulatory ‘sandbox’ for digital financial market infrastructure to provide industry with a
more structured pathway from experimentation to commercialisation - Consideration of the opportunities and challenges associated with government issuance of tokenised bonds
- Continued industry-led work on interoperable commercial bank deposit tokens
- RBA consultation with industry on opportunities to safely adapt its settlement infrastructure and ESA access
arrangements, alongside continued exploration of wCBDC.
The RBA and DFCRC wish to thank all industry participants for their involvement in Project Acacia.
Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the RBA said: “The constructive engagement between industry and public sector agencies was a foundation stone for the success of Project Acacia. It surfaced a set of common opportunities and challenges in making our financial system more dynamic and resilient through a period of intense technological disruption. The scope of future initiatives we are outlining today is ambitious – covering tokenised assets, money and new infrastructure arrangements – and
recognises that it will take a collective effort to ensure Australia’s financial system is well positioned for the digital
age.
Professor Tālis Putniņš, Co-CEO and Chief Scientist at the DFCRC said: “Project Acacia demonstrated how tokenised assets, digital money and new settlement infrastructure can improve the
efficiency and functioning of wholesale financial markets. This includes faster settlement, reduced counterparty risk,
improved capital efficiency and automated asset servicing. Australia achieved important world firsts through Project
Acacia, including the issuance of pilot wholesale CBDC onto both public and private distributed ledger infrastructure
for research purposes, demonstrating Australia’s capability to play a leading role in the next generation of financial
market infrastructure.
DFCRC research estimates that digital finance innovation could deliver $24 billion in annual economic gains
for Australia. The opportunity now is to build on the momentum from Project Acacia by translating successful
experimentation into real-world adoption through continued collaboration between industry, regulators
and government.