NAB completes world first with cross-border stablecoin transactions

NAB has completed a cross-border transaction between banks using NAB-issued stablecoin, representing a world first by a major financial institution on a layer-one public blockchain.

This pilot transaction on the public and permissionless Ethereum blockchain involved the deployment of stablecoin smart contracts for seven major global currencies. The pilot’s success demonstrates the potential to cut cross-border transactions from days to minutes and brings NAB one step closer to providing customers operating in multiple jurisdictions and currencies with a simpler and faster experience, starting with corporate and institutional customers.

NAB Chief Executive, Markets, Drew Bradford, said NAB invested to develop Australia’s safest, simplest and most secure digital asset ecosystem.

“We are committed to pursuing the right digital asset opportunities with clear customer benefits. Bringing multi-currency stablecoins to market demonstrates NAB’s focus on simplifying international banking protocols to increase speed and transparency while reducing costs and reducing complexity for customers, Bradford said.

“We believe that parts of the future of finance will be blockchain-enabled, and we are already witnessing rapid changes in the tokenization market. The strict governance frameworks we have in place ensure that we can support the creation of a safe and reliable digital financial system.”

NAB’s Australian stablecoin, AUDN, which will be fully backed one-to-one with the Australian dollar and managed as a liability to the bank, will be the cornerstone of NAB’s digital asset ambitions. In addition, transactions on a public, permissionless layer-one blockchain will provide greater transparency, accessibility and scalability.

NAB has partnered with leading technology providers Blockfold and Fireblocks for this pilot to build and distribute its stablecoins. This includes leveraging their expertise in smart contract creation, secure minting and burning of the stablecoin and managing the direct custody of the digital assets on the blockchain technology.

Fireblock CEO and co-founder Michael Shaulov said: “Australia continues to be a global torchbearer for tokenization in financial services, with NAB leading the charge in the world’s first use case of a major financial institution leveraging a public blockchain for cross-border payment rails. NAB’s successful trade execution marks the beginning of the evolution of financial services from Web2 to Web3, underpinned by blockchain technology as well as strong governance and risk management”.

BlockFold CEO and co-founder Francois Schonken said: “NAB’s execution of cross-border, multi-currency settlements on a public blockchain is exciting. This trademark marks the first cross-border, multi-currency exchange conducted by a regulated major financial institution (NAB) backed stablecoin. The NAB ecosystem of stablecoins puts in place cross-border payment rails that unlock tokenization potential for both real assets and financial products.

Notes to editors:

• NAB’s ambition is to enable transactions across seven of the most widely used currencies globally: Australian, New Zealand, Singapore and US Dollars, Euro, Yen and Pound Sterling.
• NAB expects to support selected corporate and institutional customers to transact using digital assets by the end of 2023.
• The transaction was completed using NAB’s own newly minted ERC-20 tokens.

About fire blocks

Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform that delivers a secure infrastructure for moving, storing and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, custodians, banks, fintechs and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 1,600 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $3 trillion in digital assets and has unique insurance that covers assets in storage and in transit. Some of the biggest crypto companies have switched to Fireblocks because it’s the only solution that CISOs and Ops Teams both love. For more information, visit www.fireblocks.com.

About BlockFold

BlockFold is a professional consultancy specializing in tokenization and smart contract development. Our mission is to rebuild the global financial system on safe, open and transparent standards. We partner with some of the largest global financial institutions to help them leverage blockchain technology to issue and trade stablecoins, bonds, carbon credits and real-world assets. For more information, please visit blockfold.com.