Australian Payments Plus (AP+) recently participated in Project Acacia as one of 13 lead industry organisations, contributing to a collaborative effort led by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) to explore the future of digital money and tokenised assets.

As part of the project, AP+ developed and tested three use cases focused on the interaction between existing payments infrastructure and new forms of digital money.

“One of the clearest learnings from the work was that interoperability, coordination and trust will remain critical. New capabilities are most likely to succeed when they build on the strengths of existing infrastructure and operate within clear governance arrangements,” said Lynn Kraus, CEO of Australian Payments Plus.

AP+’s work centred on three core areas:

• Connecting accounts and tokens – exploring how the New Payments Platform (NPP) could support the movement of value between traditional bank accounts and tokenised forms of Australian dollars
• Interoperability between tokenised money – testing how different forms of privately issued digital money could be exchanged in a consistent and coordinated way
• Coordinating settlement of tokenised assets – demonstrating how programmable platforms could support near real-time delivery-versus-payment (DvP) settlement of tokenised financial instruments

Together, these use cases were designed to explore how a future payments scheme might support the safe and efficient exchange of value across both existing and emerging forms of money.

While Project Acacia is a research initiative, several consistent themes emerged from AP+’s work.

Interoperability is critical
As new forms of digital money emerge – including deposit tokens, stablecoins and potentially central bank digital currencies – ensuring they can operate seamlessly together will be essential. Without interoperability, there is a risk of fragmentation across platforms and issuers, which could reduce efficiency and introduce new forms of risk.

The singleness of money remains foundational
Regardless of the technology used, maintaining confidence that different representations of Australian dollars are equivalent in value is fundamental to the stability of the financial system. This highlights the importance of arrangements that support at-par convertibility and coordination across different forms of money.

Existing infrastructure continues to play an important role
The experiments reinforced that Australia’s current payments infrastructure – including NPP, the Fast Settlement Service and ESA-based settlement – provides a strong foundation for future innovation. New capabilities are most likely to succeed when they build on the strengths of existing infrastructure, while meeting the demands of new use cases

Coordination will be key
The transition to more programmable and tokenised markets raises shared challenges that extend beyond any single institution, including the need for clear standards and governance. Addressing these effectively will require coordination across industry participants, infrastructure providers and regulators.

Project Acacia represents an important step in understanding how tokenisation could evolve within Australia’s financial system. AP+’s role in the project has been to contribute practical insights through experimentation and collaboration with industry partners.

“We look forward to continuing to work with the RBA, DFCRC and the broader industry as this work evolves, and to supporting payments innovation in a way that maintains stability, efficiency and trust,” said Kraus.