Imperium Markets has completed Australia’s first atomic settlement, or the instantaneous swapping of an asset for payment, with the eAUD – issued as central bank digital currency by the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Utilizing Fireblocks’ battle-tested tokenization technology, Imperium Markets’ pilot saw two major banks – Westpac and Commonwealth Bank – successfully issue and invest in certificates of deposit. The pilot looked to provide insight into how blockchain technology can streamline trading, settlements, and custody of securities in regulated markets.
Our use case successfully demonstrated the integration of our trading and issuance technology with the central bank’s to achieve ‘atomic’ settlement using CBDC issued by the RBA.
Key takeaways from the pilot
Imperium Markets attested to 4 key learnings from the pilot:
- The technology already exists to achieve significant benefits for the Australian economy, but choosing the right technology for the circumstance is critical for regulated markets.
- Some current market processes and practices will not be suitable nor required in digital markets.
- Regulations will need to change to support a new digital economy.
- Collaboration is key for the successful safe transition to digital markets; the onus is on market operators, market participants, regulators, and governments to work together.
The wholesale money markets and debt capital markets play a vital role in funding the Australian economy. According to Imperium Markets, atomic settlement will remove settlement, counterparty, and operating risks from those markets, enabling the creation of efficiencies around reserving capital, legacy system costs and market liquidity.
By leveraging Fireblocks’ battle-tested technology, Imperium Markets were able to successfully tokenize high quality liquid assets via the eAUD. This demonstrates that this specific Australian CBDC use case isn’t merely a solution in search of a problem but provides real world utility, creating greater efficiencies and providing more transparency and accessibility to wholesale debt capital markets and money markets. Fireblocks is proud to work with Imperium Markets in enabling atomic, risk-free settlements and providing transformative value for Australian securities trading as a whole.
About Imperium Markets
Imperium Markets is a financial and regulatory technology company that aims to digitize and transform the experience for issues and investors in the money market and fixed income markets.
Founded by a team of money market, fixed income, and technology practitioners, Imperium Markets was the first Fintech in Australia to be granted a Tier 2 markets license by ASIC to generate greater transparency and efficiency, in what historically has been an opaque market.
