Toward a stable (and green) future

A$DC is on the move again, with the announcement of ANZ’s latest Australian-dollar stablecoin transaction, this time involving BetaCarbon’s tokenised Australian carbon credits.

ANZ  has helped Victor Smorgon Group – who we previously helped with the first ever Australian-bank issued Australian dollar stablecoin payment in March - exchange A$DC for tokenised carbon credits, or BCAU. 

The deal is one we’re very proud of. It serves as the next step in ANZ’s digital journey, and highlights both our leading position in the digital-asset space, and the growing customer appetite to use A$DC as an on-ramp to the digital economy.

We talk a lot about purpose at ANZ, and while helping onboard our customers make the transition to the digital economy is a critical part of that, so is helping them move toward a net-zero carbon world. That’s a key reason this transaction stands out; it brings together two areas of significant focus for the bank - the growth of sustainability and digital assets.

At ANZ, we believe carbon credits are a fertile area for the use of digital currencies. It’s an immature market, but a fast-moving one, and a space we expect to see exponential growth in over the next decade.

We see evidence elements of tokenisation can be applied to that marketplace in ways that make it much more efficient, more global and frankly, more available to a wider range of consumers – certainly, at least, institutional investors.

We see a key part of ANZ’s growing role in the digital future as critical player in the simple-but-critical process in which carbon credits are tokenised.

Choice

At ANZ, we aim to be the financial services group choice for native value transfer within a tokenised ecosystem, and this deal shows we’re well on the way to that goal.

As part of the transaction, Victor Smorgon Group exchanged A$DC to purchase tokenised carbon credits. Our partner Zerocap, an Australian crypto asset investment platform, sourced the BCAU from BetaCarbon, a group which converts Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) into digital tokens.

Each individual digital token represents one kilogram of carbon captured.

A$DC is, of course, fully collateralised by the Australian dollar, and redeemable at par with funds held in an ANZ managed reserve account.

It’s been a privilege working with Victor Smorgon Group to explore and test this new financial market infrastructure together.

Determined to learn

It’s clear the digital economy is here to stay, and this is a space ANZ is committed to continuing to explore.

We’ve already kicked off frequent updates with our key regulators, including, but not limited to, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA), the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), and the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC).

And we may even once again cross over with ANZ’s ongoing sustainability push. The bank has now completed 62 per cent of its $A50 billion sustainable funding and facilitation commitment by 2025.

At ANZ, we are determined to learn and perfect processes both on chain and off chain for our institutional customers. We want to keep the experience simple, and able to solve the material, often operational, problems our large institutional customers have.

A$DC allows for that.

Nigel Dobson is Banking Services Lead at ANZ Institutional