The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) will launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot project.
The Reserve Bank of Australia plans to create a CBDC that will operate in a “ring-fenced environment.” Therefore, the pilot project will be limited-scale and focus on exploring the uses and potential economic benefits of CBDCs.
According to Michele Bullock, Deputy Governor of the RBA, the research will last about a year, and the working group looks forward to working with industry stakeholders to develop specific options for using CBDCs.
Specifically, the Australian pilot aims to explore the use of CBDCs to provide innovative and value-added payment instruments to households and businesses.
The Australian Treasury will participate as a member of the steering committee for the CBDC pilot. The RBA plans to release a detailed study plan in the next few months specifying all phases of the pilot project and the role of each industry participant in it.
Andreas Furche, CEO of the DFCRC, said that the global experience of creating CBDCs makes a digital currency technologically feasible in a fairly short period of time. That is why the research will primarily focus on exploring the potential economic benefits that a CBDC can provide and developing options for designing a CBDC model that will maximize those benefits.
The DFCRC is a research program funded by industry partners, universities, and the Australian Government through the Cooperative Research Centres Program. The DFCRC’s mission is to bring together financial industry stakeholders, academia, and regulators to study the digital transformation of financial markets and develop the necessary software.
Recall that nine of the world’s ten central banks are studying the possibility of launching a CBDC. The most advanced in this matter is China, which demonstrated the capabilities of the digital yuan during the Olympic Games earlier this year. In April, more than 100 million citizens gained access to the e-CNY, and over 4.5 million Chinese retailers across the country began accepting CBDC payments.
