ANZ institutional partner Victor Smorgon used A$DC to buy units of Australian carbon credits from Blockchain-based carbon trading platform BetaCarbon.
ANZ’s A$DC stablecoin has been used to purchase tokenized carbon credits in Australia, providing another critical test of the asset’s use cases in the local economy.
In March, the “Big Four” bank became the first major Australian financial institution to mint its own stablecoin after overseeing a pilot transaction worth AUD20.76 million between Victor Smorgon Group and asset manager of Zerocap digital assets.
The ANZ stablecoin is fully collateralized by AUD which is held in the reserved account managed by the bank. Until now, A$DC transactions have been done primarily through the Ethereum Blockchain.
Latest ANZ Transaction
According to a Monday report from the Australian Financial Review (AFR), the latest transaction was made by his long-time institutional partner Victor Smorgon to buy Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs).
The carbon credits were tokenized and provided by BetaCarbon, a Blockchain-based carbon trading platform that issues digital assets of value dubbed BCAU, representing one kilogram of carbon offsets per credit.
The transaction also saw the participation of Zerocap again, which provided liquidity and market-making services by exchanging the A$DC sent by Victor Smorgon into USD Coin (USDC) so that BetaCarbon could accept the transaction. However, further details regarding the value of the transaction have not been disclosed.
ANZ Spokesperson Adds Details
As for the bank’s prospects in the cryptocurrency and Blockchain sector, ANZ’s head of banking services portfolio Nigel Dobson told the AFR that the company is looking at blockchain technology as a means to “transition from the infrastructure of the financial market” and is not necessarily interested in speculative crypto assets per se:
“We see that this is evolving from being based on an Internet protocol to one of ‘tokenized’ protocols. We believe that the underlying infrastructure – efficient, secure, and public Blockchains – will facilitate transactions, both those we understand today and new ones that will be more efficient.”
Dobson echoed similar sentiments at the Chainalysis Links event in Sydney on June 21, noting that ANZ “immediately banned the word cryptocurrency from all of our internal communications and narratives” when it began exploring Blockchain technology a few years ago.
Dobson added that the bank has explored multiple use cases for Blockchain technology, such as supply chain tracking and providing on-ramps via stablecoins for institutions to invest in digital assets. However, Dobson suggested that tokenized carbon credits were a key area the bank has been preparing for, by stating that, “Another area where we have a strong position in terms of sustainability is where we believe tokenization of carbon credits and tokenized asset-driven markets and tokenized value exchange will be really efficient.”
Earlier this month, ANZ ruled out offering any cryptocurrency exposure to retail investors due to their lack of financial knowledge.
Maile Carnegie, a retail banking executive, noted at the Australian Financial Review Banking Summit that “the vast majority of them don’t really understand the basics of financial wellness.”
By Audy Castaneda
