ANZ Bank announced on Thursday the successful execution of the first-ever stablecoin payment issued by an Australian bank pegged to the Australian dollar via a permissionless public blockchain transaction.

ANZ confirmed in a statement that it had delivered the stablecoin to the Victor Smorgon Group through Zerocap, a private digital asset wealth management firm.

“The 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,” said ANZ Head of Banking Nigel Dobson.

A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency with value tied to a commodity, currency, or supply management algorithm.

ANZ minted A$30 million using an ANZ-built Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compliant smart contract deployed through the Fireblocks platform, allowing the Victor Smorgon Group to transfer funds to Zerocap within minutes.

"Stablecoins are a new way for customers to transact and in this case it was an efficient and direct way for Victor Smorgon Group to access Zerocap's digital asset exchange and move funds across a decentralized network," Mr Dobson said.

"We are excited to continue to test our capabilities and explore how this use case can be applied to other industries and customers in the future."

Commenting on the "groundbreaking" initiative, Zerocap co-founder and CEO Ryan McCall said: "this is a collaboration we are extremely proud to be a part of."

"The majority of the crypto industry is focused on serving the retail market directly, while we have invested from the outset in establishing the product, technology, compliance and team to properly serve retail and institutional clients such as Victor Smorgon Group and ANZ ,” Mr. McCall said.

“Digital assets are going mainstream; we are excited to be at the forefront of driving adoption and making this vision a reality.”

ANZ is working closely with leading digital asset providers including Fireblocks, Chainalysis and OpenZeppelin to create an internal purpose-built smart contract for stablecoins.

Late last year, the Reserve Bank of Australia confirmed it was considering issuing a digital currency, or eAUD.

The retail central bank's own digital currency (CBDC) will essentially be a digital version of the Australian dollar.

“Digital wallets are replacing physical wallets and this trend is likely to continue. It is also likely that these digital wallets will contain more than just digital images of the cards that are in our physical wallets,” RBA Governor Philip Lowe said at the time.

“I expect they will likely provide access to new tokens or account-based digital forms of money. This could allow everyday payments to be made by moving tokens instead of moving banknotes or value between bank accounts.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg also previously confirmed the federal government would move forward with Australia's first CBDC, with a pilot program expected before the end of 2022.

Maja Garatsa Djurdjevic

Maya's career in journalism spans more than a decade in finance, business and politics. Already an experienced editor and reporter in all elements of the financial services sector, before joining Momentum Media, Maya reported for several established news outlets in South East Europe, looking at key processes in post-conflict societies.