Australia’s ANZ joins Project Guardian on tokenized assets

Australia’s ANZ Bank is partnering with the Monetary Authority of Singapore, Chainlink Labs and ADDX to explore tokenized assets and blockchain interoperability.

ANZ Bank, one of Australia’s “Big Four” banks, has become the first Australian bank to join Project Guardian, an initiative by the Monetary Authority of Singapore that aims to explore how real-world assets can be represented as digital tokens on blockchains. A press release from ANZ.

The move allows ANZ to work with Chainlink Labs (LINK) and ADDX to test the exchange of tokenized assets such as commercial paper across private blockchains.

ANZ has adopted Chainlink’s cross-chain interoperability protocol to simulate tokenized asset purchases. This move follows insights from the Swift blockchain interoperability project, which launched in June.

Tokenization refers to the process of converting traditional assets, such as money market funds, into digital tokens that can be used on blockchain networks. It converts real assets into digital tokens, allowing them to be more easily bought and sold like stocks or cryptocurrencies.

ANZ aims to determine whether these digital versions of real-world assets can move more efficiently and securely between different blockchain networks. The bank hopes this will help improve the flow of money and goods in the Asia-Pacific region.

interoperability

Tokenized assets often face interoperability issues, meaning different blockchains cannot communicate easily. Interoperability is a barrier to tokenization, which often creates isolated networks that do not inherently communicate with each other.

ANZ plans to use its experience with digital assets such as the Australian Dollar stablecoin to help clients navigate this evolving digital financial landscape.

According to the statement, Project Guardian, launched in 2022, promotes collaboration between regulators and the financial industry to increase liquidity and efficiency in financial markets through tokenization.