Project Acacia, a joint initiative between the Reserve Bank of Australia and Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), has selected 14 participants to undertake trials of tokenised asset settlement in financial markets.
24 innovative use cases from a diverse range of organisations, ranging from local fintechs to major banks, have been conditionally selected for this next stage of the project. This will include 19 pilot use cases, which will involve real money and real asset transactions, and five proof-of-concept use cases involving simulated transactions.
The use cases involve a range of asset classes, including fixed income, private markets, trade receivables and carbon credits.
Proposed settlement assets for the use cases include stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), as well as new ways of using banks’ existing exchange settlement accounts at the RBA.
Issuance of pilot wholesale CBDC for testing use cases will occur on a range of private and public-permissioned DLT platforms, including Hedera, Redbelly Network, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect and other EVM-compatible networks.
Testing of use cases will occur over the next six months, with a report on the findings from the project expected to be published in the first quarter of 2026.
Brad Jones, assistant governor at the RBA says: “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. Project Acacia represents an opportunity for further collaborative exploration on tokenised asset markets and the future of money by the public and private sectors in Australia.
“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.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (Asic) is providing regulatory relief to participants to support and streamline the pilot.
Asic commissioner Kate O’Rourke says: "Asic sees useful applications for the technologies underlying digital assets in wholesale markets. The relief from regulatory requirements that we have announced today will allow these technologies to be sensibly tested—to explore opportunities and identify and tackle risks.
“Importantly, Project Acacia will allow industry and regulators to work together to learn more about how these use cases may reshape the financial services industry, potentially boosting efficiency and foster economic growth.”