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Australia is moving payment stablecoins into the SVF/digital-money framework rather than a bespoke EMT/ART regime. Under Treasury's draft, payment stablecoins (stable value vs fiat, fully backed by cash/cash-equivalents) are to be regulated as 'payment stablecoin SVFs' / tokenised SVFs, more readily treated as electronic cash, departing from ASIC's prior treatment of stablecoins as NCPFs (ASIC CP 381, Dec 2024). Tokenised SVF providers face additional requirements: monthly reserve disclosures, guaranteed redemption rights, and disclosure of adverse changes/events. Yield-bearing stablecoins remain financial products under separate treatment. A parallel digital-asset/tokenised-custody-platform exposure draft (released 25 Sep 2025) interlocks via shared 'digital token' definitions. The RBA's research (Project Acacia) tested stablecoins, bank deposit tokens and pilot wholesale CBDC as settlement assets.
- Treasury Laws Amendment (Payments System Modernisation) Regulations 2026 (exposure draft) — APRA SVF prudential threshold — SVF providers (incl. payment stablecoin issuers) become subject to APRA registration and prudential standards where aggregate customer funds/reserves exceed AU$200m. (consultation; expected 2026-12-31) source, 2026-10-18
Not yet covered by Cryptoassets.gi for this jurisdiction: how a fiat-referenced token is classified (e-money, stablecoin, e-money token or asset-referenced token) and the tests that decide it; when a firm issues a stablecoin in the jurisdiction, group and intermediary carve-outs, offer exceptions and local-establishment expectations; e-money token issuance and offer: who may issue, white-paper and reserve requirements, third-country issuer treatment and transitional periods; systemic stablecoin regimes: recognition, backing-asset rules and the joint central bank and conduct regulator regime; cross-border market access for stablecoin and e-money activity between neighbouring regimes and its expiry; what an EMI or PI needs in addition to its licence to offer crypto conversion or stablecoin services, including payment-services treatment of token transfers.
On the wholesale side, the RBA's Project Acacia concluded that interoperable private tokenised money - stablecoins or tokenised commercial bank deposits - can support asset tokenisation, while central bank money retains a foundational role and many benefits can already be realised using existing Exchange Settlement Account balances, tempering expectations that a general-purpose wholesale CBDC is required to unlock tokenised-asset settlement.
Outlook
Watch for how the tokenised-SVF stablecoin framework interacts with the separate digital-asset and tokenised-custody-platform exposure draft, and for Project Acacia follow-on work (a possible regulatory sandbox, tokenised government bond initiative and Deposit Token Working Group) to further define the settlement-asset landscape for tokenised money in Australia.
Stablecoins & Digital Money
The RBA published "Retail Central Bank Digital Currency in the Australian Context: An Update" in September 2026, finding no evidence of high domestic adoption of tokenised private money such as stablecoins and reaffirming a broader work programme on tokenised money, assets and payments infrastructure. The same update noted growing interest in stablecoin issuance in Australia as ASIC's new licensing framework comes into view, building on Project Acacia findings that stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits were used as settlement assets in wholesale pilots. Both findings apply across bank and non-bank participants in the tokenised-money ecosystem, consistent with the module's standing convention of tracking bank and non-bank issuance pathways separately.
Outlook
The RBA's tokenised-money work programme continues on a standing basis rather than a dated milestone this cycle, with the growing stablecoin-issuance-interest finding positioned as the operative reference point for issuer and licensing conversations as ASIC's digital-asset licensing framework advances toward its 30 September 2026 and 9 April 2027 milestones tracked under the licensing module.
1 earlier update recorded under a different module label
An early cycle filed this entry under this module code with a heading naming another subject. Kept for the record; not this module's latest position.
Prudential Standards & Capital Requirements
No material W2-specific prudential standards or capital-requirements developments were identified for Australia this cycle beyond the APRA SVF oversight threshold noted under W1a. The APRA streamlined registration pathway for SVF operators crossing approximately A$200 million in aggregate stored value is the primary prudential-layer development this cycle and is covered in full under W1a.
Outlook
APRA's detailed prudential standards for registered SVF operators and designated payment-facilitation-service providers will be a key second-order development once the Tranche 1 licensing package passes Parliament. No timeline for APRA consultation on those standards has been confirmed this cycle.
1 further periodic run re-emitted the standing brief unchanged and is not shown.
Sources and findings (4)
- T3https://piperalderman.com.au/insight/australias-payments-system-to-be-overhauled/ [CAVEAT: Tier 3 secondary source — Assessed; verify vs primary pre-publication]
- T3https://afslhouse.com.au/insights/australian-payments-system-modernisation-afsl-guide/ [CAVEAT: Tier 3 secondary source — Assessed; verify vs primary pre-publication]
- T3https://www.tglaw.com.au/insights/treasury-releases-draft-legislation-for-the-regulation-of-payment-service-providers [CAVEAT: Tier 3 secondary source — Assessed; verify vs primary pre-publication]
- T1https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/central-bank-digital-currency/wholesale-central-bank-digital-currency/project-acacia/retrieved