Little clear interest in a retail CBDC in Australia: central bank

Regulators are keen to pursue wholesale CBDCs.

A ‘clear public interest’ to issue retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) has yet to emerge in Australia, with a senior financial regulator saying that they are keener for wholesale CBDC.

Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), said in a speech that wholesale CBDCs would represent more of an evolution of Australia’s monetary arrangements.

“At the present time, we assess the benefits to the economy as more promising, and the challenges less problematic, for a wholesale CBDC compared to a retail version,” Jones told attendees of the Intersekt Conference held at Grand Hyatt Melbourne, 18 September.

Jones’ words echo findings of a joint paper issued by the RBA and the Department of Treasury, which found little interest from the public for retail CBDC.

“The report concludes that a clear public interest case to issue a retail CBDC has yet to emerge in Australia,” the RBA said in a separate statement.

The RBA and Treasury said that they remain open to the possibility of issuing retail CBDC in the future.

Three-year roadmap
Following the report’s findings, the RBA has committed to a three-year roadmap for future work on digital money in Australia, including the possible issuance of wholesale CBDCs.

RBA’s most immediate priority is to launch a new project on wholesale CBDC and tokenised commercial bank deposits in partnership with the industry, Jones said.

“The focus will be on understanding how new ledger arrangements and concepts like ‘programmability’ and ‘atomic settlement’ in tokenised markets could unlock benefits for the Australian financial system and wider economy,” he said.

Jones said that the RBA also plans to launch industry and academic CBDC advisory forums in the first half of 2025, covering both retail and wholesale CBDC issues. 

The RBA and Treasury are also mulling reforms to a regulatory sandbox for financial innovation, including digital money and infrastructure. This follows industry feedback that enhancements could be made to the  existing sandbox, which provides unlicensed businesses scope to test new financial products and services for a limited time.

The central bank is also looking to launch workshops on retail CBDC.