ANZ first issued its pilot A$DC stablecoin in 2022. Together with pension firm HESTA, it is now exploring using the stablecoin for employers paying staff pension contributions, according to the Australian Financial Review. Australians refer to pensions as superannuation.
Companies contributing to staff pensions pay the money across and separately send data about what it relates to. ANZ’s idea is for the data to accompany the stablecoin payment as part of a smart contract.
Apparently, there are 200 million pension payments made every year with a 1.6% error rate. All go via a central clearing house called SuperStream. Rules are now changing to ensure the payments are made at the same time as salaries, as opposed to the current status quo of quarterly.
With ANZ’s idea of encapsulating the data with the payment, the entire reconciliation process could disappear, and staff would be able to see their contributions in real time.
After the launch of ANZ’s stablecoin, the bank also participated in Australian central bank digital currency trials, contributing to multiple use cases. One of them was for SuperStream payments and HESTA was involved.
ANZ is continuing its exploration of tokenization and recently joined Singapore’s Project Guardian.
Ledger Insights Research has published a report on bank-issued stablecoins and tokenized deposits featuring more than 70 projects. Find out more here.
