BIS Project Agorá settles $1M in tokenized cross-border payments
In brief
- Twenty-eight institutions settled $1 million across 17 tokenized payment scenarios
- Average settlement time reached 80 seconds using central bank reserves and deposits
- Participants included Bank of England, France, Japan, SNB and JPMorgan Chase
- Project Agorá aims to improve wholesale cross-border payments via tokenization
Central Banks and Major Banks Test Tokenized Settlement
Five central banks participated in the trials: the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, and the Swiss National Bank. On the commercial side, JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered and MUFG participated in the tests.
The trials used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won and US dollars. This multi-currency approach tested the practical feasibility of atomic settlement—simultaneous exchange of value across different jurisdictions and asset types.
Building on Earlier Proof of Concept
In May, the project reported that its prototype demonstrated atomic settlement across multiple currencies and jurisdictions. The July trials built on that foundation by moving from controlled testing to real-value transactions. The 80-second average settlement time represents a significant efficiency gain compared to traditional cross-border payment infrastructure, which can take multiple days.
The BIS marked this as progress toward modernizing wholesale payments. Cross-border settlement remains a friction point in global finance; delays and complexity add cost and operational risk for banks and their clients. Tokenized settlement could reduce both by enabling near-instant finality.
"The BIS said the July trials marked an important milestone and that testing will continue as Project Agorá progresses." — Bank for International Settlements
The initiative reflects growing central bank interest in distributed ledger technology for financial infrastructure. Rather than speculative applications, Project Agorá focuses on a core use case: how tokenization can streamline the plumbing of international finance. Testing will continue as the project matures.
