Australia’s central bank estimates tokenization could deliver $16.7 billion in annual efficiency gains to the domestic economy. The projection reframes digital asset infrastructure from experimentation to implementation across wholesale financial markets.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) outlined the shift in findings from Project Acacia, a multi-year initiative examining tokenized assets and settlement systems. Assistant Governor Brad Jones said the bank now views adoption as a question of execution, not viability. The project tested 20 use cases spanning government bonds, corporate debt, repos, and investment funds.
Brad Jones* Assistant Governor (Financial System)
How Will Stablecoins And Deposit Tokens Coexist?
The RBA’s framework positions stablecoins and bank deposit tokens as complementary instruments rather than competing ones. Stablecoins could support smaller, emerging tokenized markets, while deposit tokens—issued by regulated banks—are expected to dominate larger-scale financial activity. Settlement trials also incorporated wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and exchange settlement balances.
Globally, tokenized finance infrastructure is already scaling in select segments. In the United States, tokenized repo markets process nearly $400 billion in daily volume, according to industry data. That benchmark highlights the potential throughput Australia aims to replicate or adapt within its regulated environment.
Jones noted that industry participants see wholesale CBDC as “potentially helpful, but far from essential” for adoption. Instead, attention is shifting toward interoperability, regulatory clarity, and market structure constraints. These include entrenched network effects and legal uncertainty that continue to slow institutional deployment.
Still, the RBA is coordinating with the Council of Financial Regulators and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre to address these barriers. Planned initiatives include a digital infrastructure sandbox and a joint regulator-industry advisory group. The next phase will hinge on licensing reforms and whether pilot programs translate into production-scale settlement systems.
