On Thursday, ANZ become the first ever Australian bank to issue a stablecoin through a public permissionless blockchain transaction.
ANZ confirmed in a statement it delivered the stablecoin for Victor Smorgon Group via Zerocap, a private wealth management firm for digital assets.
But while ANZ was the first, experts predict that it’s only a matter of time before more Aussie banks follow other Western markets with this kind of stablecoin offering.
Commenting on ANZ’s pilot move, Dacxi CEO, Ian Lowe, welcomed the initiative, noting “it will continue to drive mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency”.
“We believe that continued adoption of blockchain technology by mainstream institutions indicates that tokenisation (where assets such as gold and silver are made available as digital investments on a blockchain) is also headed for more widespread adoption, vindicating our ongoing investment in the space,” Mr Lowe said.
Kraken managing director for Australia, Jonathon Miller, believes the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) should look to replicate similar openness in their proposal for a retail CBDC or eAUD in the Australian market.
Late last year, the RBA confirmed it is entertaining the possibility of issuing a digital currency or an eAUD.
“Digital wallets are replacing physical wallets and that this trend is likely to continue. It is also likely that these digital wallets will contain more than just digital representations of the cards that are in our physical wallets,” RBA governor Philip Lowe said at the time.
Mr Miller characterised ANZ’s move as both commendable and rational.
“It proves that these open source protocols are alternate financial services networks which offer many advantages over traditional closed source rails. In particular transparency, composability/programmability and ultimately greater utility for individuals and businesses,” Mr Miller said.
“Cryptocurrencies are open source and these features have created the conditions for greenfield innovation and will never be out-competed by walled garden legacy payment stacks,” he continued.
On Thursday, ANZ confirmed it minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform, allowing Victor Smorgon Group to transact the funds to Zerocap within minutes.
“Stablecoins are a new way for customers to transact and in this case was an efficient and direct way for Victor Smorgon Group to access Zerocap’s digital asset exchange and move funds across a decentralised network,” said ANZ banking services lead, Nigel Dobson.
“We’re excited to continue to trial our capability and explore how this use case can be applied in other industries and customers in the future.”
Maja Garaca Djurdjevic
Maja's career in journalism spans well over a decade across finance, business and politics. Now an experienced editor and reporter across all elements of the financial services sector, prior to joining Momentum Media, Maja reported for several established news outlets in Southeast Europe, scrutinising key processes in post-conflict societies.
