With all the spectacle you would almost forget that there is also something else than the Bitcoin price. The National Australia Bank (NAB) however, issued a statement on May 14 which is more than newsworthy. This Australian bank says it is the first major financial institution to facilitate an international stablecoin transaction on a public blockchain. It concerns a transaction with the AUDN stablecoin, which is pegged to the Australian dollar.
Ethereum blockchain
Unsurprisingly, the transaction took place on the Ethereum blockchain, which is home to a slew of different stablecoins. The National Australia Bank used smart contracts for seven different currencies, the statement said. It was, among other things the Australian, New Zealand, Singaporean, American, Japanese, British and European fiat currencies.
The stablecoins in question were created as fresh bank debt on the ERC-20 standard on Ethereum. National Australia Bank has teamed up with the Fireblocks and Blockfold platform to make it happen. “We believe certain elements of the future of finance will lean on blockchain technology,” said Drew Bradford of NAB.
With the pilot, the Australian bank shows that the transaction time can be reduced from a few days to a few minutes. NAB’s goal with the test round is to simplify the international protocols of banks. Before the end of the year, it aims to support corporate and institutional clients with transactions in stablecoins.
Not the first
Incidentally, the NAB is not the first major bank to launch an Australian dollar-based stablecoin. The first was the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, which launched a digital Australian dollar in March 2022. It is very interesting to see how many parties from the traditional world see benefits in the technology and also use Ethereum to build these kinds of projects.
That gives a lot of confidence in the future. Especially if it turns out that these types of applications make the traditional financial system faster and cheaper. In the end, we still pay each other with fiat money and not with Bitcoin. In that respect, it is a great development that the technology can also make international transfers cheaper.