Twenty-eight global banks complete $1 million BIS tokenization pilot
Twenty-eight commercial lenders and five central banks completed a live $1 million cross-border payment pilot using tokenized money. Led by the Bank for International Settlements, Project Agorá processed 30 real-value transactions across six fiat currencies, including the U.S. dollar and euro. Settlements averaged roughly 80 seconds on a shared ledger. The trial demonstrates growing institutional momentum toward tokenized bank deposits and central bank reserves for faster, safer international settlements.
Key takeaways
- 1Project Agorá tested tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits across six major global currencies.
- 2Twenty-eight major banks processed $1 million in live transactions with average settlement times of 80 seconds.
- 3The pilot used a shared ledger to enable simultaneous foreign-exchange settlement and reduce cross-border payment risks.
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Why it matters
Wholesale banking adoption of tokenized deposits signals a shift toward blockchain infrastructure in traditional finance. If adopted globally, shared-ledger settlement could lower cross-border friction, reduce liquidity risks, and compete directly with private stablecoin networks for corporate payments.
Discussion
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