National Australia Bank (NAB) successfully completed a cross-border bank transfer using its AUDN stablecoin pegged to the Australian dollar.
National Australia Bank reported a successful test transaction using the bank’s stablecoin AUDN, issued on Ethereum.
The transfer was carried out between NAB’s subsidiaries. The experiment involved deploying smart contracts on the blockchain network to convert AUDN into seven fiat currencies:
- Australian dollar;
- New Zealand dollar;
- Singapore dollar;
- U.S. dollar;
- euro;
- Japanese yen;
- British pounds.
According to Drew Bradford, NAB’s Executive General Manager, the transaction was successful and the pilot demonstrated an opportunity to increase the speed and transparency of cross-border transactions using digital assets. “We are committed to pursuing the right digital asset opportunities,” Bradford states. That’s why the bank’s stablecoin was chosen for the pilot test.
The transaction with AUDN was the first of its kind, demonstrating the benefits of cross-border multi-currency exchange using a stablecoin issued by a major regulated financial institution. NAB’s future plans are to expand the use of AUDN beyond intra-bank transactions. By the end of this year, the stablecoin will be available for use by the bank’s corporate and institutional customers.
NAB became the second of Australia’s major banks to create its own stablecoin. AUDN is ERC-20 and was issued by NAB in January 2023 in collaboration with the Fireblocks platform and professional services consultants from BlockFold.
In March 2022, ANZ Bank became the first major financial institution in Australia to issue its own stablecoin. A$DC was successfully used to purchase tokenized Australian carbon credit units (ACCU).
