Australia Starts Research Program to Explore Digital Asset Opportunities

Twenty-five prominent institutions in Australia have come together to start a research program to benefit from the opportunities arising from asset digitization.

The Digital Finance Cooperative Research Center (DFCRC) is a 180 million Australian dollar (US$124.3 million) program, funded by industry partners, universities and the Australian Government. The 10-year long program will have 25 partners from the finance, academia and regulatory sectors, including the central bank.

Australian central bank governor Philip Lowe was present at the inauguration, along with Paul O’Sullivan, chairman of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ). Earlier this month, the Australian central bank entered into a collaboration with the DFCRC to explore use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

On Monday, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones officially launched the DFCRC at the Australian Securities Exchange.

"We want to get the regulation right because we want to ensure the guardrails are sufficiently wide to enable innovation to occur within a safe ecosystem,” Jones said.

ANZ's Sullivan noted this is a frontier opportunity in which a tokenized carbon exchange could lead to market efficiency.

Read More: Australia to Use 'Token Mapping' as Framework for Crypto Regulation