National Australia Bank (NAB) is set to become the second “Big 4” Australian bank to launch an Australian dollar-pegged stablecoin on the Ethereum network. Set to launch sometime in mid-2023, the AUDN stablecoin is aimed at streamlining cross-border remittances and carbon credit trading, according to a Jan. 18 report from the Australian Financial Review (AFR). NAB’s chief innovation officer Howard Silby said the decision to mint the AUDN stablecoin on Ethereum — which is backed 1:1 by the Australian dollar (AUD) — was based on their belief that blockchain infrastructure will play a key role in the next evolution of …

The Reserve Bank of Australia weighs in the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) race to explore use cases for a CBDC in the country. It will collaborate with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) on a respective research project. As stated in an announcement from Aug. 9, the joint project of the Reserve Bank and DFCRC will focus on “innovative use cases and business models” that could be supported by the issuance of a CBDC. The technological, legal and regulatory considerations will also be assessed in the project’s course. The pilot will last about a year and take the …

Executives at two of Australia’s “big four” banks have ruled out allowing retail customers to trade cryptocurrency on their platforms, with one reasoning that customers don’t understand “basic financial well-being.” Speaking at the Australian Financial Review Banking Summit on Tuesday Maile Carnegie, executive for retail banking at Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ), said that from speaking to retail customers, she believed “the vast majority of them don’t understand really basic financial well-being concepts.” “Are we really going to make it easier and less friction and implicitly endorse speculating on crypto when they don’t understand basic financial well-being? The …

Big 4 bank ANZ has become the first Australian bank to mint an Australia dollar (AUD) pegged stablecoin named “A$DC.” But rival bank NAB also has its own stablecoin project which is expected to launch by the end of the year. ANZ is working with local regulators such as AUSTRAC and APRA to get the project signed off in a compliant manner, and has already run a test transaction on the Ethereum blockchain with its institutional partner Victor Smorgon Group, the family office tied to the billionaire Smorgon family. According to a March 24 report from the Australian Financial Review …

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) published a report into its two-year research project into wholesale central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that emphasized the benefits of digitizing and autonomizing manual, paper-based banking processes using distributed ledger technology (DLT). The report marks the conclusion of the two-year project named “Project Atom” that was conducted in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB), Perpetual, and ConsenSys, along with additional input from King & Wood Mallesons. Commenting on Project Atom, RBA’s assistant governor (Financial System) Michele Bullock noted that it “demonstrated the potential for a wholesale CBDC and …

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is set to launch crypto trading services for the 6.5 million users of its CommBank app. The CBA will become the first bank in Australia to support crypto, and Blockchain Australia says it is “inevitable” that the other ‘big four’ banks including National Australia Bank (NAB), Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) and Westpac will soon follow suit. According to a Nov. 3 announcement, the CBA has partnered with the Gemini crypto exchange and blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis to launch its crypto services. The bank will launch a pilot for a limited number …

For a country of 25 million people, Australia punches well above its weight both economically and in the world of blockchain. Australians have long been enthusiastic adopters of new technology, from cellphones to smart homes, so it’s little surprise they’ve embraced crypto too. Chainalysis ranks Australia 20th out of 154 countries surveyed this year for its "The 2020 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report," citing favorable regulation that legitimizes the technology as driving "steady growth in adoption." Australian crypto educator Alex Saunders, founder of Nuggets News, said the Australian crypto community encompasses everyone from hardcore Bitcoin (BTC) maximalists to well-known Ethereans and …