Aussie University Partners With ANZ To Explore Offline CBDC Payments
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The Southern Cross University has partnered with ANZ to pilot a central bank digital currency dubbed eAUD. The pilot program ran for eight weeks, allowing students to purchase goods and services offline from on-campus vendors.
The pilot program looked into how a CBDC can address situations where online connectivity is impossible because of major outages or in places lacking online connections.
Exploring Offline CBDC Payments
The Head of Industry and Innovation, Transaction Banking at ANZ, Hari Janakiraman, commented on the development, saying ANZ would work with its customers and regulators to research this project that had significant benefits.
“ANZ was delighted to work closely with our customers and key regulator on a research project of national significance – an exploration into a potentially whole new type of payment technology for Australians,” Janakiraman said.
The university based its research on last year’s Northern Rivers Floods. The disaster saw Southern Cross University’s Lismore Campus become the main evacuation center when ATMs and EFTPOS machines were down. The crisis created the need for offline payments.
The Director of Financial Services at Southern Cross University, Richard Jones, noted that the pilot program demonstrated how a university could provide financial support by disbursing digital currency during emergencies such as floods.
University-Backed CBDC Pilot
During the pilot program, ten students from Southern Cross University received NFC-enabled smart cards containing eAUD. The amount was to be spent at select vendors within the university’s Gold Coast and Northern Rivers campuses. The participating vendors were Quick Brown Fox, SCU Gym and Pool, SCU Health Clinic, and Green Room Café.
The owners of Quick Brown Fox, Tim, and Nui Gordon, opined that it was exciting to participate in a project exploring money’s future. He further said that a CBDC would likely become very popular in Australia and other countries such as Sri Lanka.
Gordon noted that the pilot highlighted the reliability of an offline CBDC. This CBDC worked offline and could not fall victim to network errors usually visible with other card systems. The feedback also noted that the offline CBDC was easy to use and charged no bank fees.
The objective of this pilot program was to demonstrate how a university can offer the needed financial support using a CBDC during emergencies such as floods wherein students cannot access the traditional banking service or online platforms.
