The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) today released
a report
detailing the findings of Project Acacia – a joint initiative examining how innovations in
digital money and settlement infrastructure could support the development of wholesale tokenised asset
markets in Australia.
The project was led by the RBA and the DFCRC in collaboration with industry participants, with support from the
Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority
(APRA), and the Australian Treasury.
Conducted against a backdrop of growing global momentum in tokenised finance, Project Acacia identified
the potential for asset tokenisation – alongside innovations in digital money and settlement
infrastructure – to enhance the efficiency, functionality and resilience of Australias
wholesale financial markets. The project also identified several challenges to scaling tokenised markets
that warrant deeper analysis by regulators and industry, including some that connect to the broader
environment for responsible financial innovation in Australia.
As part of the project, industry participants developed and tested 20 wholesale tokenised
asset
market use cases spanning a range of asset classes. These use cases demonstrated potential benefits from
tokenisation across the asset lifecycle from issuance and servicing to trading and settlement. The use
cases also explored multiple methods for settling tokenised asset transactions using different forms of
public and private digital money, including traditional RBA exchange settlement account (ESA) balances, a
pilot wholesale central bank digital currency (wCBDC), tokenised commercial bank deposits and
stablecoins.
Building on the momentum generated by Project Acacia, the report outlines a new multi-stream program aimed
at advancing responsible innovation in Australias wholesale financial markets. The program will
focus on overcoming long standing co-ordination challenges, removing unnecessary barriers to the safe
adoption of new technologies, and enabling industry participants to explore and scale innovative
approaches to uplifting wholesale market functioning in a manner consistent with financial stability.
Key elements of the program, which will involve a range of stakeholders, include:
- Strengthened cooperation between industry and regulators
- Exploration of a new regulatory sandbox for digital financial market infrastructure to
provide industry with a more structured pathway from experimentation to commercialisation - Consideration of the opportunities and challenges associated with government issuance of tokenised
bonds - Continued industry-led work on interoperable commercial bank deposit tokens
- RBA consultation with industry on opportunities to safely adapt its settlement infrastructure and ESA
access arrangements, alongside continued exploration of wCBDC.
The RBA and DFCRC wish to thank all industry participants for their involvement in Project Acacia.
Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the RBA said:
The constructive engagement between industry and public sector agencies was a foundation stone for the
success of Project Acacia. It surfaced a set of common opportunities and challenges in making our
financial system more dynamic and resilient through a period of intense technological disruption. The
scope of future initiatives we are outlining today is ambitious – covering tokenised assets, money
and new infrastructure arrangements – and recognises that it will take a collective effort to ensure
Australias financial system is well positioned for the digital age.
Professor Tālis Putniņš, Co-CEO and Chief Scientist at the DFCRC said:
Project Acacia demonstrated how tokenised assets, digital money and new settlement infrastructure can
improve the efficiency and functioning of wholesale financial markets. This includes faster settlement,
reduced counterparty risk, improved capital efficiency and automated asset servicing. Australia achieved
important world firsts through Project Acacia, including the issuance of pilot wholesale CBDC onto both
public and private distributed ledger infrastructure for research purposes, demonstrating
Australias capability to play a leading role in the next generation of financial market
infrastructure.
DFCRC research estimates that digital finance innovation could deliver $24 billion in annual
economic gains for Australia. The opportunity now is to build on the momentum from Project Acacia by
translating successful experimentation into real-world adoption through continued collaboration between
industry, regulators and government.
For a March 2026 speech summarising the key findings of Project Acacia, see:
After Acacia: The Next Era of Financial System Innovation?