Project Acacia, a collaboration between the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), has chosen 14 participants for trials focused on tokenised asset settlement within financial markets.
A total of 24 innovative use cases from a variety of organizations, including local fintechs and major banks, have been conditionally selected for this next phase. This includes 19 pilot use cases involving actual transactions with real money and assets, as well as five proof-of-concept use cases based on simulated transactions.
The selected use cases encompass various asset classes such as fixed income, private markets, trade receivables, and carbon credits. Proposed settlement assets include stablecoins, bank deposit tokens, and pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC), along with new methods for utilizing banks’ existing exchange settlement accounts at the RBA.
The issuance of the pilot wholesale CBDC for testing will take place on several private and public-permissioned DLT platforms, including Hedera, Redbelly Network, R3 Corda, Canvas Connect, and other EVM-compatible networks.
Testing will occur over the next six months, with findings expected to be reported in the first quarter of 2026.
Brad Jones, Assistant Governor at the RBA, emphasizes the strategic priority of ensuring Australia’s payment and monetary systems are suited for the digital era. He notes that Project Acacia offers a valuable opportunity for collaborative exploration of tokenised asset markets and the future of money between Australia’s public and private sectors.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) is providing regulatory relief to participants to facilitate and streamline the pilot. ASIC Commissioner Kate O’Rourke states that there are promising applications for the technologies behind digital assets in wholesale markets. The regulatory relief will enable sensible testing of these technologies, allowing participants to explore opportunities and address potential risks.
Overall, Project Acacia aims to deepen understanding of how innovations in central bank and private digital money, along with payments infrastructure, can enhance the functioning of wholesale financial markets in Australia, potentially driving efficiency and economic growth.