The Bank for International Settlements' (BIS) Project Agorá has completed real-value trials of tokenized cross-border payments, settling about $1 million. The project, involving 28 institutions like the Bank of England and JPMorgan Chase, used tokenized central bank and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in six major currencies with an average time of 80 seconds, marking a key milestone for the initiative.
Project Agorá trial results
- ▪Project Agorá completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments, settling approximately 800,000 Swiss francs (about $1 million)
- ▪The trials involved 17 transaction scenarios and achieved an average settlement time of about 80 seconds
Tokenized cross-border payment mechanics
- ▪The tests used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments
- ▪Payments were settled in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won, and US dollars
- ▪In May, a Project Agorá prototype demonstrated atomic settlement across multiple currencies and jurisdictions
Participating institutions
- ▪A total of 28 financial institutions and central banks participated in the Project Agorá trials
- ▪Commercial bank participants included JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered, and MUFG
- ▪Participating central banks included the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, and the Swiss National Bank
BIS tokenization initiative
- ▪Project Agorá is a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) initiative launched in 2024 to improve cross-border wholesale payments
- ▪The BIS described the July trials as an "important milestone" and confirmed that testing will continue
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