On 10 July 2025, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) announced the industry participants selected for the next stage of Project Acacia. Supported by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) and the Australian Treasury, the project will now begin testing live settlement of tokenised assets using forms of digital money, including a pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stablecoins.
As discussed in a previous article, Project Acacia is a collaborative research initiative led by the RBA and DFCRC. It builds on the findings of an earlier CBDC pilot which highlighted the potential of digital money to enable smarter payments, support innovation in asset markets, promote innovation and interoperability across different kinds of private money, and enhance resilience and inclusion in the digital economy.
Project Acacia is structured in two main phases:
- A (completed) conceptual research phase which mapped models for how tokenised assets could settle using various types of digital money, and
- An experimentation phase which involves working with industry participants to test these settlement models through real or simulated use cases using their own infrastructure.
The RBA and DFCRC announced on Thursday that 24 use cases have been selected for further testing. Nineteen pilot use cases will involve transactions using real money and assets, and five proof-of-concept use cases will run simulated transactions. Participants include Westpac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ, Fireblocks, Australian Bond Exchange and Zerocap.
ANZ, for example, has announced that they will lead use cases for Tokenised Trade Payables and Tokenised Bonds. The Tokenised Trade Payables use case addresses working capital and cash flow challenges faced by suppliers by exploring how wholesale CBDCs and tokenised Independent Payment Undertakings can automate settlement and unlock liquidity trapped in supply chains. The Tokenised Fixed Income use case explores how wholesale CBDC as a form of tokenised money can streamline the issuance and settlement of fixed income assets via smart contracts.
Other use cases include private markets, trade receivables and carbon credits, as well as proposed settlement assets such as stablecoins, bank deposit tokens and the use of banks’ exchange settlement accounts with the RBA. CBDC testing is expected to take place on a number of public and private permissioned distributed ledger platforms such as Hedera, R3 Corda, Redbelly Network and EVM-compatible chains.
To support the experimentation phase, ASIC has provided targeted relief to allow participants to test their tokenised settlement models without triggering licensing obligations under financial services laws. A copy of the legislative instrument can be found here. The relief is subject to a number of a number of conditions, including an opt-in, and will be repealed at the conclusion of the project.
Brad Jones, Assistant Governor at the RBA, stated:
Ensuring that Australia’s payments and monetary arrangements are fit-for-purpose in the digital age is a strategic priority for the RBA and the Payments System Board.
The use cases selected in this project will help us to better understand how innovations in central bank and private digital money, alongside payments infrastructure, might help to uplift the functioning of wholesale financial markets in Australia.
Chief Scientist at DFCRC, Professor Talis Putnins, pointed to the project’s potential for economic gains and cross-border payments of AU$19 billion per year, with “Project Acacia [marking] a significant step towards realising these gains.”
Testing will continue over the next six months with a report due in the first quarter of 2026.
As other jurisdictions such as the United States explore the potential to redesign the financial system based on blockchain rails to unlock innovation, productivity and dynamism, the Project Acacia pilot will play an important role in Australia’s own journey to develop the legal and policy parameters for the digital economy and test real world uses cases for the technology.
