CBDC Offline Payment Pilot

The Reserve Bank is collaborating with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) on a research project to explore use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia.

One of these use cases is Offline Payments.

CBDCs could address situations where online connectivity is absent. This includes major outages,  communities that lack the means to connect online or those who are unbanked. 

The Offline Payments Project Team is made up of:

  • Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited 

  • ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions *

  • Capgemini Australia

  • Secretarium

  • Thales DIS France SAS

  • RMIT University

  • Southern Cross University

 Pilot Proposal:

The pilot will be conducted on campus at RMIT University and Southern Cross University.  As part of the pilot, NFC-enabled smart cards pre-loaded with CBDC funds will be given to participating students. 

The aim is to demonstrate how an organisation like a university can step in and provide immediate financial support through the disbursement of CBDC in emergency situations, such as where students are unable to access funds online or traditional banking services. 

The pilot will involve several steps.

  1. The universities will operate a secure smartphone app to view their CBDC balance. Using NFC functionality, specific amounts of CBDC will be loaded onto the smart cards.  

  2. The smart cards will be given to participating students, who will use them to make purchases at on-campus merchants, such as cafes, gyms and book shops.   

  3. Merchants will have a secure smartphone app to accept the students’ card payments at point of sale, where CBDC payments will be transferred in an offline scenario. These consumer-to-merchant payments function as cash sales. Multiple offline transactions can occur to evaluate consecutive offline payments in the proposed solution. 

  4. Merchants will use their app to view the CBDC they have received and can select to redeem their CBDC balance into fiat currency, which will be transferred to their bank accounts. 

RMIT University and Southern Cross University , along with members of the project team, will conduct research into the implications of the solution, including scalability assessments for more sensitive use cases such as payments to communities affected by emergencies or government-sponsored payment schemes for communities in need. However, these other use cases will only be explored from a research perspective and will not be trialled in this pilot. 

For more information visit the DFCRC project site


*Disclaimer

ANZ Worldline Payment Solutions means Worldline Australia Pty Ltd ACN 645 073 034 (“Worldline”), a provider of merchant solutions. Worldline is not an authorised deposit taking institution (ADI) and entry into any agreement with Worldline is neither a deposit nor liability of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited ACN 005 357 522 (“ANZ”) or any of its related bodies corporate (together “ANZ Group”). Neither ANZ nor any other member of the ANZ Group stands behind or guarantees Worldline.

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