Businesses looking to move money overseas instantly and without incurring significant foreign exchange fees will soon be turning to blockchain technology with digital payments company Novatti Group (ASX: NOV) announcing the launch of their highly-anticipated AUDD stablecoin. 

Backed 1:1 against the Australian dollar, the Novatti-issued AUDD stablecoin will go live on 1 November 2022. Users of AUDD will be able to exchange their $A fiat currency for AUDD which can be instantly transferred on the Stellar blockchain without incurring fees that banks charge for international transfers.

“The launch of AUDD enables Australian and global businesses to take advantage of blockchain-based innovations in global payments,” said Novatti Managing Director, Peter Cook. 

“Novatti is proud to be the first Australian payments company to deliver on the potential of digital currencies, providing our clients with an innovative new payment solution while creating new revenue streams for our business.”

The addition of AUDD to Novatti’s suite of digital payments expands the Novatti ecosystem, enabling businesses and consumers to transmit large amounts of funds with very low transaction or foreign exchange fees. As a licensed provider of merchant services, Novatti already supports a large number of international businesses in collecting payments from customers using Visa or Mastercard. Once those funds have been acquired, one application of AUDD is to bulk transfer them to another country instantaneously as AUDD rather than waiting several days for an inter-bank transfer. 

Michaela Juric, Novatti’s GM Blockchain and Digital Assets, said: “Novatti is excited to bring our safe, secure open market stablecoin solution to the domestic and global payments industry.
“AUDD provides our clients with greater choice in how to pay and be paid, with the potential for faster and lower cost domestic, cross-border, and billing payments as well as for stablecoin-linked payment cards.”

As a globally recognised financial institution, Novatti is able to issue AUDD and will generate revenue from fees associated with the transaction of AUDD. In the event it reaches the scale of other stablecoins in the market, interest on funds held at 1:1 backing could also grow to be substantial for Novatti which reported $32.5 million in revenue in FY22, a 97% increase on the previous year. 

The launch date of AUDD was announced overnight at the Stellar Meridian conference in Italy where Novatti’s executive team have been in attendance networking with global financial institutions and blockchain businesses. Having worked closely with Stellar for several years, the AUDD project has incurred minimal capital expenditure from Novatti. 

Highlighting their position as thought leaders in the stablecoin space, Novatti has recently been engaged by the Reserve Bank of Australia’s Digital Finance roundtable to advise on use cases for digital currencies in Australia.