Australia’s Second Largest Bank Has Ambitious Plans for Its Stablecoin

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) have come up with a host of new use cases for its institutional oriented stablecoin, the Australian Financial Review reports.

The bank, which has A$978.9 billion ($706.6 billion) in assets under management, plans to make it possible to conduct carbon trading and collect excise taxes with the help of the stablecoin.

ANZ also intends to allow retail customers to buy non-fungible tokens with the help of the stablecoin, which could potentially boost its adoption. On top of that, A$DC could possibly be spent in the Metaverse.   
 
The country’s second largest bank by assets under management announced a partnership with cryptocurrency custody platform Fireblocks in order to mint its own stablecoin backed by the Australian dollar. It became the world’s first major banking institution to make such a move.

The stablecoin was rolled out on the Ethereum blockchain, but the bank said that it was open to multi-chain functionality.

The project was initially developed for the Victor Smorgon Group, one of the most successful family offices in Australia.

In late March, ANZ completed its first payment with the help of the stablecoin, delivering it to Victor Smorgon Group with the help of cryptocurrency-oriented wealth management firm Zerocap.

While the stablecoin initially attracted pushback from local regulators, ANZ executive Nigel Dobson said that the bank had had “incredibly constructive” conversations with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and regulatory agencies.

Given that one in nine Australians bought crypto over the past year, it comes as no surprise that the country is rushing to regulate the fast-growing industry. The recent crash highlighted the need for consumer protection.