Digital Finance comprises a wide field of R&D endeavour encompassing many use cases across many industries and asset classes. Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a field of particular importance. CBDC and other forms of trusted digital currency have the potential to transform financial infrastructure thereby impacting market operations, retail and business payments, and buying/selling of digital assets. The Bank of International Settlement notes: CBDCs promise to provide cash-like safety and convenience for peer-to-peer payments. To do so, they must be resilient and accessible.
The development and deployment of robust, efficient and trusted CBDC requires the design, engineering, proving and integration of a suite of technologies including blockchain, security and privacy preserving solutions and regtech (surveillance, alerting and compliance) technologies. Progress in the field of CBDC, and Digital Finance more broadly, critically depends upon the development of highly skilled human capital.
Our proposed R&D program unites the RBA and ANZ with Trovio and DigitalX, digital market services and technology solutions providers, with 11 PhD students supervised by investigators from RMIT, Macquarie University and UTS. The Digital Finance CRC will manage the program and provide expert mentoring for the students plus access to finance, legal and technology advice, infrastructure and solutions.