RBA opens consultation to adapt RITS for tokenised wholesale markets, says no retail CBDC case

The Reserve Bank of Australia on Thursday opened a public consultation on how its core settlement system could support tokenised wholesale financial markets, while separately reaffirming with Treasury that it still sees no clear public-interest case for a retail central bank digital currency.

The split matters because it shows the central bank is taking a concrete policy step on market infrastructure for financial institutions, not moving toward digital cash for the general public. In plain terms, a wholesale CBDC would be digital central bank money used by banks and other institutions to settle transactions. A retail CBDC would be a public-facing digital currency for households and businesses.

“The RBA today launched a consultation on the Role of RITS in Supporting Settlement in a Tokenised Ecosystem,” the central bank said in a media release dated Sept. 3.

The consultation, titled “The Role of RITS in Supporting Settlement in a Tokenised Ecosystem,” seeks submissions by Oct. 30, 2026. RITS, short for the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System, is the RBA’s platform for settling payments between financial institutions in central bank money.

According to the consultation paper, tokenisation could improve the efficiency, functionality and resilience of Australia’s wholesale financial markets. The RBA is seeking views in four broad areas: how tokenised asset platforms could be synchronised with the RBA’s settlement services to support delivery-versus-payment, meaning assets and funds transfer together; how different forms of tokenised private money could be exchanged at par and linked with traditional bank accounts; whether and how stablecoin arrangements might gain access to central bank reserves; and high-level design questions for tokenised central bank reserves, also known as wholesale CBDC.

The bank said it is not proposing a preferred model. Instead, the exercise is focused on practical settlement, operational and implementation issues. The work is expected to inform both the RBA’s RITS Modernisation program and its broader policy work on tokenised finance.

That framing is significant because it suggests the RBA is testing how existing central bank infrastructure might adapt to tokenised markets, rather than making an immediate policy choice in favor of any single form of digital settlement asset. The consultation is about how tokenised platforms, private-sector money and possible central bank money could work with the settlement system Australia already uses.

The immediate backdrop is Project Acacia, the RBA’s research program with the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre announced in May. The project tested 20 wholesale tokenised market use cases and used several settlement methods, including traditional exchange settlement account balances held at the RBA, a pilot wholesale CBDC, tokenised bank deposits and stablecoins.

The RBA has previously said Project Acacia suggested that many near-term benefits of tokenisation could be achieved by synchronising tokenised platforms with existing settlement infrastructure, rather than immediately shifting to tokenised central bank money. That helps explain why the new consultation is centered on RITS and settlement mechanics.

On the retail side, the message from policymakers did not change. Also on Sept. 3, the RBA and Australian Treasury published “Digital Currency in the Australian Context: An Update,” in which they restated their earlier conclusion that Australia does not currently have a clear public-interest case for a retail CBDC.

“The RBA and Treasury maintain that there is currently no clear public interest case for issuing a retail CBDC in Australia,” the update said.

That conclusion drew on a structured public consultation conducted by the Verian Group and an independent report, “Unmet Payment Needs and Digital Money.” Together, those inputs informed the government and central bank’s latest view that a public-facing digital Australian dollar is not currently justified.

For now, the clearest next step is in wholesale markets: the RBA has opened the consultation process on adapting RITS for a tokenised financial system, with submissions due by Oct. 30, 2026.