10-7-2025 – Australia’s central bank has selected 24 industry participants including Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, and ANZ to test wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and tokenized asset markets in a six-month trial under Project Acacia, the Reserve Bank of Australia announced today.
The comprehensive trial will include 19 pilot use cases involving real money and real asset transactions, plus 5 proof-of-concept cases with simulated transactions. Testing will cover diverse asset classes including fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits using stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale CBDC across multiple blockchain platforms including Hedera, Redbelly Network, and R3 Corda.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has provided regulatory relief to streamline participant involvement, marking a significant step toward potential widespread adoption of digital assets in wholesale markets. The Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre estimates the economic potential of digital finance innovation in Australia could reach AU $19 billion annually in market and cross-border payment gains.
Results from the trial are expected to be published in the first quarter of 2026, with findings set to guide Australia’s approach to digital money infrastructure and tokenized asset market development.
