Top Australian financial institutions, ANZ Group and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, have joined a group of participants set to pilot use cases for a central bank digital currency alongside the Reserve Bank of Australia.
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According to a report from Bloomberg, ANZ will test pension fund transactions with the CBDC, offline payments and the tokenization of carbon credits. Commonwealth Bank wants to see the potential of the CBDC for real asset tokenization and smart payments.
"It is essential that Australia continues to build our capabilities in this key area of finance and explore the possibilities of emerging technologies," said Sophie Gilder, Commonwealth Bank managing director for blockchain and digital assets.
The Australian central bank reportedly plans to published results of the pilot by mid-2023. In addition to banks, other financial giants, including Australian Bonds Exchange and Mastercard, are also listed in the pilot group, but focused on different domains.
Apparently, Australia want to keep up with the global trend of digitization as even local banks have already signaled they would issue their own stablecoin.
As iHodl earlier reported, National Australia Bank plans to launch the so-called AUDN stablecoin in Q2-Q3 for trading carbon credits and sending money abroad. The stablecoin will be minted by the bank on the Ethereum blockchain network and pegged 1:1 to the Australian dollar.
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