Reserve Bank of Australia

Monetary policy decisions rest with the Monetary Policy Board, chaired by Governor Michele Bullock. The board includes Deputy Governor Andrew Hauser and external members such as Carolyn Hewson and Ian Harper, all publicly listed by the RBA. Day-to-day market operations — including foreign-exchange intervention and open market operations — are executed by the domestic markets desk under the Assistant Governor (Financial Markets).

The RBA's portfolio is a central bank balance sheet, not a sovereign wealth fund. Its foreign reserves exist to facilitate exchange-rate operations and provide external liquidity, not to generate long-horizon returns for a future pension liability. Australia separate sovereign wealth fund, the Future Fund, operates under entirely separate governance and invests in equities, private equity, and infrastructure — asset classes the RBA typically avoids.

The RBA does not co-invest alongside private GPs. Its institutional memberships are regulatory and collaborative in nature: it is a shareholder of the Bank for International Settlements, contributes to the Financial Stability Board, and engages through IMF quota arrangements. It also operates the clearing and settlement system at the core of Australian payments rather than participating as a limited partner in private funds.

The RBA holds sovereign and quasi-sovereign fixed-income securities, gold, and central bank deposits. On the domestic side, it holds commercial real estate for operational purposes — its Sydney and Canberra buildings are held outright, alongside an industrial site in Victoria used for banknote production. It does not invest in public equities, venture capital, or corporate private equity.

Project Acacia, completed in May 2026, explored tokenized asset markets and wholesale central bank digital currency use cases. The RBA has not launched a retail CBDC but has concluded its research phase and is now consulting with industry on the practical application of digital money in wholesale settlement. The project was run alongside the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre.

The Financial Markets Foundation for Children and The Anika Foundation are supported through staff fundraising, donations, and events organized by RBA personnel. They are operationally separate from the central bank balance sheet and possess their own governance structures. The RBA does not invest the corpus of these foundations within its official reserves.

The RBA manages its foreign reserves predominantly in-house, deploying across sovereign bonds and central bank deposits. It does not publicly report commitments to external fund managers or private capital vehicles, consistent with its mandate to maintain highly liquid and secure international reserves. Any external mandate would be disclosed in the annual report under reserve management policy.