Australia’s central bank launches one-year research programme for digital currency project

Australia’s central bank said that it was launching a one-year research programme into the case for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia, focusing on what potential economic benefits it might bring.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is partnering with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), a government-backed industry group, in the program.
The project will seek to identify innovative use cases and business models that could be supported by the issuance of a CBDC, and better understand some of its technological, legal, and regulatory considerations.
It will involve the development of a limited-scale CBDC pilot that will operate in a ring-fenced environment and involve a pilot CBDC that is a real claim on the RBA.