JPMorgan, Citi, UBS Test Tokenized Cross-Border Payments in BIS Project Agorá Pilot

Twenty-eight banks moved real money across borders using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits across six currencies.

A group of 28 major commercial banks has completed real cross-border payments using tokenized money in a live pilot led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), marking another step as tokenization technology moves into the infrastructure of global finance.

Project Agorá, which brings together five central banks — the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, Banque de France (operating on behalf of the Eurosystem), the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Korea — and 28 commercial lenders including JPMorgan, Citi, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Standard Chartered — processed approximately $1 million (CHF 800,000) in real-value transactions across six currencies: the U.S. dollar, euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and South Korean won.

The pilot utilized tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle corporate payments, interbank payments, and foreign exchange transactions. According to the BIS report, the payments settled in an average of roughly 80 seconds through 30 transactions on a shared ledger, even though the prototype was not directly integrated with the banks' existing payment infrastructure. By contrast, traditional cross-border payments often require one to two business days or more to settle as funds move through SWIFT messaging and successive correspondent banks.

Reducing Risk Through Shared Ledger Settlement

Today's cross-border payments typically pass through multiple correspondent banks, with each institution maintaining its own separate records before funds are ultimately settled. Improving the speed, cost, and transparency of these payments has been identified as a priority by the G20, which set targets in 2020 for reducing average settlement times and fees. The BIS pilot took a different approach by placing tokenized money on a shared ledger, enabling banks to complete transactions while relying on a single shared record of ownership and payment status.

The project also tested simultaneous foreign exchange settlement, allowing banks to exchange two currencies at the same time rather than waiting for one side of a transaction to settle before completing the other. This approach reduces settlement risk — the danger that one party sends money without receiving the counterpart currency in return, a concern in FX markets since the 1974 collapse of Bankhaus Herstatt, which exposed banks to losses when time-zone differences left one side of a trade unfulfilled.

Participating banks reported that the platform improved payment traceability from start to finish and operated alongside existing payment systems rather than replacing them.

Distinct From Private Stablecoins

Unlike stablecoins, which are typically issued by private-sector entities such as Circle (CRCL) and Tether, Project Agorá tokenizes two forms of traditional bank money: central bank reserves used by commercial banks to settle with one another, and commercial bank deposits held by customers.

The initiative fits into a broader industry shift as tokenized assets gain traction across global finance. Asset managers have begun issuing tokenized money market and private credit funds, while stablecoins are increasingly being used for cross-border payments and corporate treasury operations.

Project Agorá is one of several wholesale tokenization efforts currently underway as central banks and commercial lenders explore how digital money could modernize the infrastructure behind global financial markets. It builds on earlier BIS Innovation Hub experiments such as Project Jura, a 2021 pilot that tested cross-border wholesale CBDC settlement between France and Switzerland. Additional information is available in the BIS Project Agorá report, the European Central Bank's DLT page, and a joint statement from the UK's FCA and Bank of England on tokenisation in wholesale markets.