On Thursday morning local time, the Australian central bank announced that it has unveiled a series of initiatives that will explore potential applications for a digital dollar, known as the eAUD, during its ongoing testing phase. The initiatives will examine various use cases, including offline payments, securities trading, and bond settlement, among others.

"We are delighted with the enthusiastic engagement by industry in this important research project. It has also been encouraging that the use case providers that have been invited to participate in the pilot span a wide range of entities in the Australian financial system, from smaller fintechs to large financial institutions. " Brad Jones, Assistant Governor (Financial System) at the RBA said in the announcement. "The pilot and broader research study that will be conducted in parallel will serve two ends – it will contribute to hands-on learning by industry, and it will add to policy makers’ understanding of how a CBDC could potentially benefit the Australian financial system and economy."

"The variety of use cases proposed covers a range of problems that could potentially be addressed by CBDC, including some that involve the use of CBDC for atomic settlement of transactions in tokenised assets. The process of validating use cases with industry participants and regulators will inform further research into design considerations for a CBDC that could potentially play a role in a tokenised economy." Dilip Rao, Program Director – CBDC with the DFCRC added.

The following use cases and their providers have been invited to participate in the pilot.