Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in Australia: Motivations, design, implementation challenges, and public adoption

Australia is among the advanced economies exploring CBDC as the next step forward towards digital public money – to ensure monetary systems are appropriate, adaptive, and future-proof. Each jurisdiction will encounter their own subtly unique challenges in implementation. Despite little being confirmed regarding the eventual composition of Australia’s CBDC, this research provides Australian policy makers with recommendations regarding the formulation of the CBDC and its structure. This thesis asks whether the potential design of CBDC in Australia will be influenced by the jurisdiction’s regulation of legal tender and the central bank’s motivations for exploring CBDC, considering the required technological capabilities.