Australia Eyes Stablecoin Interoperability in Draft Payments Vision
Australia has released a draft vision for its domestic payments system, which highlights the potential of stablecoins and tokenized fiat currency to transform the way money moves across payment rails. The draft, co-developed by key stakeholders including the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Commonwealth Treasury, identifies digital assets as a significant external force that could impact future account-to-account (A2A) payments.
The document suggests that A2A systems may need to support secure interoperability between account-based money and tokenized representations of fiat currency, allowing for reliable movement of funds between these environments while maintaining trust. This development indicates that Australia's payments planners are beginning to consider tokenized money as a design consideration for mainstream payment infrastructure.
The draft also notes that digital assets, including stablecoins, could introduce new risks around accountability, liability, data use, and resilience, but also have the potential to reshape how payments are initiated, authorized, and managed. This move is part of Australia's broader work on tokenized money, stablecoins, and digital asset regulation, which includes initiatives such as Project Acacia, a wholesale digital money project exploring settlement in tokenized asset markets.
Australia has been actively advancing its tokenization work, with the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre announcing selected use cases for Project Acacia in July 2025. The RBA has also emphasized the need to move beyond short-term pilots and toward longer-term, staged environments where industry and regulators can test new technologies and adjust policy settings. Additionally, the Treasury has proposed digital asset laws that would introduce new financial products, such as digital asset platforms and tokenized custody platforms, which would require an Australian Financial Services Licence.