According to Cointelegraph, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said it will not pursue a retail CBDC in the near future, but will focus on launching a wholesale CBDC.

At the Intersekt fintech conference in Melbourne on September 18, RBA Assistant Governor Brad Jones presented the RBA’s three-year roadmap, which focuses primarily on the development of a wholesale CBDC.

Jones said the RBA's research found that retail CBDCs had limited innovative implications for the Australian public, while wholesale CBDCs offered a number of key advantages to commercial and central banks, including reduced counterparty and operational risks, improved transparency and audit capabilities, enhanced liquidity and trading capabilities, and reduced intermediation and compliance costs.

He added that the potential benefits of a retail CBDC were “negligible or uncertain” for the Australian public and that a retail digital currency would come with higher borrowing costs, increased risk of bank runs and difficulties in implementing monetary policy.

Jones explained that the central bank’s “most urgent priority” is launching the public phase of Project Acacia, exploring wholesale CBDC and tokenized commercial bank deposits.

Project Acacia aims to build on the central bank’s previous research on CBDC and explore future cross-border applications with regional central banks.

The project also plans to establish an industry and academic CBDC advisory forum, support regulatory sandbox reforms for financial innovation, and conduct public engagement on retail CBDC.

Jones also noted that the RBA is further studying the potential benefits of asset tokenization and the role of blockchain and smart contract technology in central bank financial operations.