Australian central bank digital currency clocks up 140 possible use cases

The Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre’s central bank digital currency project have received over 140 submissions for possible use cases of the technology in Australia.

As the initial October submission deadline passed last week, the DFCRC also said industry feedback led to an extension of the research proposal period to now end in March 2023.

The RBA and the DFCRC partnered in August for a year-long research program into potential benefits arising from a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and what this might look like.

The project “intends to test a general-purpose pilot CBDC issued as a liability of the RBA for use in real-world, pilot implementations of services offered by Australian industry participants,” the central bank said in its September white paper.

On Monday, the DFCRC said industry participation “has been strong with over 140 use case submissions to date.”

“The submissions include a number of use cases that are high-level or conceptual in nature, which are not being proposed for near-term implementation in the transactional pilot," it said.

“These submissions are valuable inputs to the broader CBDC research project, which is focusing on the financial or payment services that might become feasible if a CBDC was introduced in Australia.”

The DFCRC said “this will assist considerations about the potential economic benefits and design of a CBDC.”

As the October submission deadline closed, the DFCRC said feedback from industry participants suggested “that more time would be desirable to submit use cases for the research”.

The DFCRC and RBA chose to extend the submission period for CBDC use cases that could deliver economic benefits “but are not necessarily ready for implementation in the transactional pilot”.

“These submissions will be an important element of the evidence base for the findings from the overall project," they said.

The pilot is due to commence in January 2023 and close in April, with findings expected to be released by mid-2023.