ANZ Bank Completes Carbon Credits Trading as Part of Australia’s CBDC Pilot

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Published: April 6, 2023

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ) has completed the first use-case of carbon credit trading as part of Australia’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot, the Melbourne headquartered bank announced on Wednesday.

Australia’s CBDC pilot, run by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC), began last year to explore use cases for a CBDC. The DFCRC is a 180 million Australian dollar (US$124.3 million) program, funded by industry partners, universities and the Australian Government.

ANZ partnered with Grollo Carbon Ventures to trade Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), which are issued by the Australian Government’s Clean Energy Regulator.

ANZ and GCV tested real-world ACCUs by first tokenizing existing ACCUs. ANZ’s own stablecoin (A$DC) was then used to purchase the tokenized ACCUs. Australia’s Pilot CBDC was used as a risk-free asset to support the issuance of A$DC, the announcement said.

Tokenization of carbon markets can reduce settlement time and partnership risk and incentivise investment in climate solutions.

The RBA has revealed a set of projects to test use cases for its cbdc and partners for the pilot projects include Mastercard, Monoova, the Australian Bond Exchange, DigiCash, Commonwealth Bank and others.

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