Australia’s central bank said Tuesday it was launching a one-year investigation program into the case for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia, focusing on the potential economic benefits it could bring.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is collaborating in the program with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Center (DFCRC), a government-backed industry group.
The project will seek to identify innovative use cases and business models that can be supported by the issuance of a CBDC, and gain a better understanding of some of the technological, legal and regulatory considerations.
It includes the development of a limited scale CBDC pilot that will operate in a shielded environment and a CBDC pilot that is a real claim to the RBA.
Interested industry participants will be invited to develop specific use cases demonstrating how a CBDC can be used to provide value-added innovative payment and settlement services to households and businesses.