The Reserve Financial institution of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Analysis Centre (DFCRC) at the moment launched
a report
detailing the findings of Mission Acacia – a joint initiative analyzing how improvements in
digital cash and settlement infrastructure might help the event of wholesale tokenised asset
markets in Australia.
The undertaking was led by the RBA and the DFCRC in collaboration with {industry} members, with help from the
Australian Securities and Investments Fee (ASIC), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
(APRA), and the Australian Treasury.
Carried out in opposition to a backdrop of rising world momentum in tokenised finance, Mission Acacia recognized
the potential for asset tokenisation – alongside improvements in digital cash and settlement
infrastructure – to boost the effectivity, performance and resilience of Australia’s
wholesale monetary markets. The undertaking additionally recognized a number of challenges to scaling tokenised markets
that warrant deeper evaluation by regulators and {industry}, together with some that hook up with the broader
surroundings for accountable monetary innovation in Australia.
As a part of the undertaking, {industry} members developed and examined 20 wholesale tokenised
asset
market use instances spanning a variety of asset courses. These use instances demonstrated potential advantages from
tokenisation throughout the asset lifecycle from issuance and servicing to buying and selling and settlement. The use
instances additionally explored a number of strategies for settling tokenised asset transactions utilizing totally different types of
private and non-private digital cash, together with conventional RBA alternate settlement account (ESA) balances, a
pilot wholesale central financial institution digital foreign money (wCBDC), tokenised industrial financial institution deposits and
stablecoins.
Constructing on the momentum generated by Mission Acacia, the report outlines a brand new multi-stream program aimed
at advancing accountable innovation in Australia’s wholesale monetary markets. This system will
deal with overcoming lengthy standing co-ordination challenges, eradicating pointless limitations to the protected
adoption of recent applied sciences, and enabling {industry} members to discover and scale revolutionary
approaches to uplifting wholesale market functioning in a way per monetary stability.
Key components of this system, which is able to contain a variety of stakeholders, embody:
- Strengthened cooperation between {industry} and regulators
- Exploration of a brand new regulatory ‘sandbox’ for digital monetary market infrastructure to
present {industry} with a extra structured pathway from experimentation to commercialisation - Consideration of the alternatives and challenges related to authorities issuance of tokenised
bonds - Continued industry-led work on interoperable industrial financial institution deposit tokens
- RBA session with {industry} on alternatives to securely adapt its settlement infrastructure and ESA
entry preparations, alongside continued exploration of wCBDC.
The RBA and DFCRC want to thank all {industry} members for his or her involvement in Mission Acacia.
Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Monetary System) on the RBA stated:
The constructive engagement between {industry} and public sector businesses was a basis stone for the
success of Mission Acacia. It surfaced a set of widespread alternatives and challenges in making our
monetary system extra dynamic and resilient via a interval of intense technological disruption. The
scope of future initiatives we’re outlining at the moment is formidable – protecting tokenised property, cash
and new infrastructure preparations – and recognises that it’s going to take a collective effort to make sure
Australia’s monetary system is properly positioned for the digital age.
Professor Tālis Putniņš, Co-CEO and Chief Scientist on the DFCRC stated:
Mission Acacia demonstrated how tokenised property, digital cash and new settlement infrastructure can
enhance the effectivity and functioning of wholesale monetary markets. This consists of sooner settlement,
diminished counterparty danger, improved capital effectivity and automatic asset servicing. Australia achieved
vital world firsts via Mission Acacia, together with the issuance of pilot wholesale CBDC onto each
private and non-private distributed ledger infrastructure for analysis functions, demonstrating
Australia’s functionality to play a number one position within the subsequent era of economic market
infrastructure.
DFCRC analysis estimates that digital finance innovation might ship $24 billion in annual
financial beneficial properties for Australia. The chance now’s to construct on the momentum from Mission Acacia by
translating profitable experimentation into real-world adoption via continued collaboration between
{industry}, regulators and authorities.
For a March 2026 speech summarising the important thing findings of Mission Acacia, see:
After Acacia: The Subsequent Period of Monetary System Innovation?
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