Four forms of money. One two-tier monetary system.
The project tested balances, a pilot , stablecoins, and deposit tokens. Each plays a different role in atomic settlement, composability, and the singleness of money once assets move on-chain.
A field guide.
ESA balances
Public- Liabilities of the RBA — free of counterparty risk.
- Today's foundation for interbank settlement.
- Eligibility restricted to ADIs + select financial institutions.
Wholesale CBDC
Public- Pilot issued under a deed poll; real legal claim on the RBA.
- Enabled true atomic settlement and composable smart-contract flows.
- Production form still TBD — could be a digital twin of ESAs, or distinct.
Deposit tokens
Private- Claim on issuing bank — leverages existing prudential oversight.
- DTWG examined two transferability models (Box D).
- Tested by CBA (repo) and ANZ (corporate bond + trade payable).
Stablecoins
Private- Used: AUDM, AUDF, AUDD, RLUSD + project-issued.
- Issuer credit risk; lack of remuneration; new tokenised SVF regime incoming.
- Preferred by some when backed (partly/wholly) by central bank money.
Atomic settlement vs. traditional DvP.
In traditional markets, Delivery-versus-Payment is a chain of linked-but-separate steps across custodians, FMIs, and the RTGS. On a single tokenised platform, the whole chain can become a single all-or-nothing smart-contract operation — and interchange between different money tokens can happen inside the same atomic transaction.
Collateralised loan, atomic.
Loan, collateral and payment token composed into a single atomic transaction. Collateral released on repayment without multi-system orchestration. The collateral never sits in a half-settled state where it could be re-pledged or contested. This is what programmable money looks like when the legal and technical layers actually agree.
Bond coupon, single transaction.
With the bond and money token on the same ledger, coupon calculation, distribution and settlement execute as one atomic transaction governed by the bond token.
Two deposit-token transferability models.
Model 1 · Burn-and-reissue
Closer to today's payments. A deposit token isn't transferable to a non-customer — instead, an interbank payment is triggered and the original token is destroyed, with a new token issued by the payee's bank.
Model 2 · Assignable
Novel. Tokens are transferable/assignable across customers of participating banks. The payee receives the bank's token directly and interacts with it in their own bank's wallet.
- Confirm deposit token issuance falls within 'banking business' (Banking Act 1959).
- Declare deposit tokens 'covered financial products' to extend Financial Claims Scheme coverage.
- Exempt deposit-token platforms from 'financial product' classification.
- Prescribe deposit tokens as not being 'virtual assets' under the AML/CTF Act.
Interchange between forms of private money.
Use cases mostly aligned with Model E from the consultation paper — wCBDC plays the ESA-like role between issuers of different private monies. The Australian Payments Plus variant kept wCBDC on a private chain and used a 'white coin' digital twin on the public chain, with a synchroniser keeping them aligned.
Bilateral interchange
Token issuers establish one-to-one arrangements. Easy for defined pairs, expensive to scale across many.
Multilateral interchange
Shared infrastructure + rules. Higher upfront cost, lower industry total cost. AP+ Token Interchange demonstrated a single industry-wide utility — a public good rather than N² bilateral plumbing.
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