Today, the Reserve Bank in collaboration with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) demonstrated the selected organisations exploring potential use cases and economic benefits of a central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Australia with a live demonstration.

The CANVAS use case demonstrated foreign exchange trade of Australian dollar CBDC for USDC, a US dollar stablecoin on the Canvas’ CBDC exchange, and instant international remittances, on its ZK Layer 2 privacy blockchain – Canvas Connect. 

Last week, Aussie fintech CANVAS made financial history by facilitating the first Foreign Exchange transaction using an Australian CBDC. The historic trade was conducted as part of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) and Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) CBDC pilot. The first FX transaction was successfully completed between ASX-listed DigitalX, and Fund Manager TAF Capital, to trade eAUD to USDC stable coin on Wednesday 17th May.

CANVAS, is a global financial technology company with a mission to digitize finance and was selected to test FX transactions and International remittances with the RBA’s CBDC - the eAUD.

Connect provides privacy, confidentiality, low cost, and instant transactions, on the public Ethereum blockchain which are the essential ingredients for digital finance. Canvas’ technologies demonstrate how blockchain eliminates FX market inefficiencies and settlement risks whilst ensuring confidentiality on a public blockchain.  

“We believe our solution has the potential to dramatically increase speed and reduce the risks and costs compared to traditional Foreign Exchange (FX) Trading & International Remittance networks, and will radically transform finance and markets over the next decade,” said David Lavecky, Canvas Co-Founder & CEO. 

“The opportunity for CBDCs in Foreign exchange trading and international remittances is significant and we’ve successfully shown through real transactions the possibilities and efficiencies of the Canvas Connect network,” he said. 

“Our Layer 2 ZK network, along with a suite of critical Financial Markets Applications enables the Transfer, Trade & Investment of digital assets which assures privacy, confidentiality, low cost and high speed. Our solution utilizes privacy-focused ZK Layer 2 technology to demonstrate that the use of CBDC and Digital currencies like USDC in FX trading and Remittances can potentially enable frictionless, 24x7x365 trading and global movement of foreign currencies,” he said.

“Today CBDC pilot live demonstration is a critical development for digital finance in Australia, and we're honoured to be a part of it alongside other major industry financial institutions and showcase its capabilities,” Said Mr Lavecky. 

The CBDC pilot project selected industry participants demonstrating potential use cases; the project received a large number of use case submissions from a range of industry participants. Canvas, an Australian Fintech 

CoFounded by Daniel Lavecky and David Lavecky, is one of 14 use cases chosen to participate in the pilot, including the potential to provide insights into the possible benefits of a CBDC.