BIS said Project Agorá settled cross-border payments in seconds using tokenized reserves and deposits.
The Bank for International Settlements released on Wednesday findings from Project Agorá, a two-year experimental initiative that demonstrated cross-border wholesale payments can settle in seconds using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits. The project involved seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions across multiple jurisdictions.
The BIS said the prototype achieves atomic settlement, in which all balance updates occur simultaneously or not at all, once liquidity is locked. The approach reduces both credit and settlement risk while preserving what the BIS described as the "two-tier banking system" and the "singleness of money," which it called "fundamental to financial stability," distinguishing the model from stablecoin alternatives.
Project Agorá was convened jointly by the BIS and the Institute of International Finance, targeting the slow and costly nature of international transactions that continue to burden global trade. Cross-border payments totaled $195 trillion in 2024 and are projected to reach $320 trillion by 2032.
The prototype uses a two-layer blockchain architecture, combining tokenized central bank reserves held on jurisdictional ledgers with tokenized commercial bank deposits on a shared unifying ledger. Settlement is designed to operate around the clock, eliminating delays caused by misaligned operating hours across jurisdictions.
The platform also allows institutions to conduct Anti-Money Laundering, sanctions, and fraud screening simultaneously rather than sequentially. The BIS said this design could reduce the high false-positive rates that currently affect cross-border payment systems.
"The prototype also enhances transparency. All parties to a transaction have access to real-time payment status, while maintaining privacy from non-participating entities," the BIS stated in the report. It added that visibility could eventually be extended to end users, including debtors and creditors.
Participating central banks include the Banque de France representing the Eurosystem, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, the Swiss National Bank, the Bank of England, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York through its New York Innovation Center. The report identified areas still requiring development, including liquidity-saving mechanisms, cybersecurity posture, and governance frameworks covering settlement finality, data governance, and risk management.
The project is advancing to real-value testing with actual transactions involving certain currencies and participants, though the BIS did not provide a timeline for broader implementation. Cointelegraph said it reached out to the BIS media team for comment on implementation timelines and governance plans but had not received a response by publication.
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