The Reserve Bank of Australia and the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre initiated a national CBDC pilot to explore novel business models, operational frameworks, and both wholesale and retail use cases for a potential Australian digital currency. The pilot was designed to assess practical benefits, risks, and implementation considerations across a broad set of real-world scenarios.

The pilot needed to support a diverse set of 15 organizations including major Australian banks across a wide range of use cases simultaneously, from CBDC interoperability and FX settlement to supply chain finance and bond settlement acceleration, within a structured innovation environment that could support parallel experimentation.

Kaleido provided a sandbox environment supporting tokenized CBDC issuance and programmable settlement. The Consortium as a Service blockchain platform was used by 15 organizations to test a broad range of use cases including CBDC interoperability, FX settlement, supply chain finance, and bond settlement acceleration. Kaleido continues to be involved as an industry advisor to the next phase of RBA's work, Project Acacia, which will also involve deployment and operation of key digital assets infrastructure.