Australia's ANZ Bank becomes the world's first bank to mint its own crypto Stablecoins

By Matthew Griffin Connected Society 12th April 2022

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Money is changing. Alot. And this is both giving governments new opportunities and freaking them all out.

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Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) said on Thursday it carried out an Australian dollar stablecoin payment, in a landmark transaction to become the first Australian lender to mint a digital asset linked to the country’s currency.

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Unlike Bitcoin and other traditional cryptocurrencies a stablecoin is a kind of digital asset that is devised to keep its value stable in relation to another asset, and are frequently used as a portal to other cryptocurrencies or to generate income in decentralised financial (DeFi) systems.

ANZ said it has delivered the Australian dollar stablecoin, which it calls A$DC, to a private wealth management firm for digital assets – Victor Smorgon Group – through digital asset investment platform Zerocap.

The company’s move to mint digital assets linked to the Australian dollar comes after the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) said last year the growth of digital wallets could allow the exchange of tokens or digital forms of money that could be backed by the RBA, even as the central bank remains sceptical of the digital currency.

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ANZ, the country’s number three lender, said it has minted 30 million of A$DC using a smart contract and the coins were transferred between the parties and later redeemed back into Fiat currency.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

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