Project Agorá settles wholesale transactions in seconds using tokenized reserves
The Bank for International Settlements released findings from Project Agorá on May 28, concluding a two-year collaboration with seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions to prototype tokenized cross-border wholesale payments.
The platform uses a two-layer blockchain architecture. Tokenized central bank reserves sit on jurisdictional ledgers, while tokenized commercial bank deposits operate on a shared unifying ledger. Atomic settlement ensures all balance updates occur simultaneously or not at all. Once funds lock, transactions settle in seconds, and the system operates around the clock.
Participating central banks include the Banque de France (representing the Eurosystem), Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, Bank of Mexico, Swiss National Bank, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Bank of England. The Institute of International Finance served as joint convener.
The BIS framed the design around “two-tier banking system” and “singleness of money,” which it called “fundamental to financial stability.” Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, noted that “shared ledgers and tokenization could make payments and settlement faster and cheaper, with fewer intermediaries and shorter settlement windows.”
The prototype addresses operational friction in existing cross-border systems. The BIS stated that “all parties to a transaction have access to real-time payment status, while maintaining privacy from non-participating entities.” The platform also enables parallel anti-money laundering, sanctions, and fraud screening rather than sequential screening, reducing settlement delays.
Global cross-border payments reached $195 trillion in 2024, according to the BIS report. Projections estimate the figure will climb to $320 trillion by 2032, underscoring the scale of the infrastructure challenge.
Project Agorá is advancing to real-value testing with actual transactions involving certain currencies and participants, though the BIS did not name the specific currencies or institutions involved in this phase. The central bank consortium also did not provide a timeline for broader implementation or detail governance frameworks and other areas requiring further development.
