The Reserve Bank of Australia, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Perpetual and ConsenSys, with
input from King & Wood Mallesons, today jointly released a
report
to mark the successful conclusion
of Project Atom.

Project Atom was a collaborative research project undertaken during the past year that examined the
potential use and implications of a wholesale form of central bank digital currency (CBDC) using
distributed ledger technology (DLT). The project involved the development of a proof-of-concept (POC) for
the issuance of a tokenised form of CBDC that could be used by wholesale market participants for the
funding, settlement and repayment of a tokenised syndicated loan on an Ethereum-based DLT platform. The
project explored a number of issues, including:

• how access to a CBDC could be extended to a wide range of wholesale market participants, including
  those that would not ordinarily have access to accounts at the Reserve Bank
• the potential benefits of integrating a wholesale CBDC with tokenised assets on interoperable DLT
  platforms
• whether an enterprise-grade DLT platform could be a viable technology for a wholesale CBDC.

The POC demonstrated that the digitisation of syndicated loans on a DLT platform could provide efficiency
gains and reduce operational risk by replacing highly manual and paper-based processes. Integrating a
wholesale CBDC on the same DLT platform enabled ‘atomic’ delivery-versus-payment settlement
of the drawdown, novation and repayment of the tokenised syndicated loan, and could potentially allow for
other forms of programmability that could improve efficiency and reduce risk in transactions. The POC
also demonstrated that an enterprise-grade DLT platform with appropriate controls on access and security
could address many of the potential requirements for a wholesale CBDC system and tokenised assets
platform.

Assistant Governor (Financial System) Michele Bullock said, ‘Project Atom demonstrated the potential
for a wholesale CBDC and asset tokenisation to improve efficiency, risk management and innovation in
wholesale financial market transactions. The project also demonstrated the benefits of collaboration in
advancing our knowledge in this area. The Bank will continue its research on CBDCs as part of its
strategic focus area on supporting the evolution of payments.’