ANZ unveils first ever Australian bank-issued stablecoin

The Australia and New Zealand Banking Group will launch the first bank-issued stablecoin payment from Australia through a public permissionless blockchain transaction.

The new stablecoin will be pegged to the Australian dollar.

ANZ banking services lead Nigel Dobson said, “An ANZ-issued Australian dollar stablecoin is a first and important step in enabling our customers to find a safe and secure gateway to the digital economy.

“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. 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.”

According to Investor Daily, ANZ minted 30 million of A$DC using an ANZ built Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform, allowing Victor Smorgon Group to transact the funds to Zerocap within minutes.

Zerocap co-founder and CEO Ryan McCall mentioned that ‘this is a collaboration that we’re incredibly proud to be a part of’.

He added, “Most of the crypto industry has been focused on directly servicing the retail market, whereas we’ve invested from the outset in establishing the product, technology, compliance and team to properly service private and institutional clients, like the Victor Smorgon Group and ANZ.

“Digital assets are going mainstream; we’re thrilled to be at the forefront of driving adoption and bringing that vision to life.”

ANZ noted that it worked closely with key digital asset domain providers such as Chainalysis, OpenZeppelin and Fireblocks to create an ‘in-house purpose-built stablecoin smart contract.”

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