ASIC has released an update on Project Acacia, a joint initiative between the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) aimed at supporting the development of Australian wholesale tokenised asset markets.
ASIC stated that 24 use cases have now been chosen for the project which range from local fintechs to major banks.
This includes 19 pilot use cases, which will involve real money and real asset transactions, and 5 proof-of-concept use cases involving simulated transactions.
“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,” said ASIC.
“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.”
In order to support Project Acacia, ASIC is providing regulatory relief to participants to support and streamline the pilot.
ASIC said the relief will support the responsible testing of tokenised asset transactions, in some cases using CBDCs, between participants and a limited number of financial institutions in the coming months.
The Corporate Regulator has previously provided individual relief of a similar nature to participants in earlier digital money projects led by the RBA.
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.
“The findings of this next stage of the project will support the RBA’s ongoing research into how innovation in the financial system can best support the Australian economy in the digital age,” said ASIC.
The lead use case participants include the Australian Bond Exchange, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Corporation, Australian Payments Plus, Canvas Connect, Catena Digital, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Fireblocks, Forte Tech Solutions, Imperium Markets, Northern Trust, NotCentralised, ProspEx Group, Westpac Banking Corporation and Zerocap.
RBA assistant governor Brad Jones said 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,” said Jones.
“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.”
ASIC Commissioner Kate O’Rourke said that ASIC supported the responsible development of new technologies, including tokenisation and distributed ledgers.
“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,” said O’Rourke.
“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.”
Chief scientist at DFCRC Professor Talis Putnins said it was great to have collaboration on the project from so many parts of the industry, from small fintechs to large banks, alongside the key financial regulators.
“The real money settlement models being tested, including issuing pilot wholesale CBDC on third party platforms, reflects another world-first for Australia in this rapidly evolving field,” said Putnins.
“The project is of strategic importance to the DFCRC because, as a co-operative research centre, our focus is on bringing together key groups to unlock the large economic potential of digital finance innovation in Australia.”
Putnins said research suggests potential economic gains in markets and cross border payments could be in the order of AU $19 billion per year.
“Project Acacia is a significant step towards realising these gains, by providing evidence on the forms of money and settlement models that best enable tokenised real-world asset markets,” he said.
