ANZ Becomes First Australian Bank to Issue Stablecoin

Australia and New Zealand Banking (ANZ), one of Australia’s big four banks has successfully executed the first ever Australian bank-issued stablecoin payment, pegged to the Australian dollar through a public permissionless blockchain transaction. The Australian Bank minted 30 million of the Australian Dollar (A$DC) using an ANZ built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform. Simultaneously, Victor Smorgon Group, a family office based in Australia transacted the funds to Melbourne-based exchange Zerocap. “Stablecoins are a new way for customers to transact and in this case was an efficient and direct way for Victor Smorgon Group to access Zerocap’s digital asset exchange and move funds across a decentralised network,” said ANZ banking services lead, Nigel Dobson. “We’re excited to continue to trial our capability and explore how this use case can be applied in other industries and customers in the future,” Dobson added. A$DC Will be Marketed Initially to Institutions While A$DC is currently based on the Ethereum blockchain, ANZ plans to expand it to Hedera and other blockchains in the near future. The A$DC, initially will be marketed toward institutional clients, with retail availability on an Australian crypto exchange coming later. As a custodian and infrastructure provider, Fireblocks has worked with BNY Mellon, Siam Commercial Bank, Revolut, and Crypto.com Earlier las...