BIS Project Agorá Settles $1 Million in Tokenized Cross-Border Payment Trials
Key Takeaways
- •Project Agorá successfully settled approximately $1 million in real-value tokenized cross-border transactions across 17 distinct payment scenarios.
- •The trials achieved an average settlement time of about 80 seconds, dramatically faster than the one to two business days required by traditional correspondent banking networks.
- •Twenty-eight financial institutions participated, including central banks from England, France, Japan, Korea, and Switzerland, alongside major commercial banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, and Standard Chartered.
- •Transactions were conducted in six currencies: Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won, and US dollars.
- •The BIS confirmed that Project Agorá testing will continue as the initiative advances beyond this milestone.
BIS Project Agorá Settles $1 Million in Tokenized Cross-Border Payment Trials
Twenty-eight financial institutions and central banks have successfully completed real-value settlements using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits across six currencies, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
The BIS announced on Thursday that Project Agorá had completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments. The trials involved 28 financial institutions and central banks settling a combined 800,000 Swiss francs ($1 million) across 17 distinct transaction scenarios.
The tests utilized tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments denominated in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won, and US dollars. Transactions achieved an average settlement time of approximately 80 seconds. By comparison, cross-border payments routed through traditional correspondent banking networks can take one to two business days to settle as funds pass through multiple intermediary institutions — a friction the G20 has explicitly prioritized addressing since 2020.
Central bank participants included the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea, and the Swiss National Bank. Commercial banks taking part comprised JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered, and MUFG.
Project Agorá, launched in 2024, is a BIS initiative exploring how tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves can enhance cross-border wholesale payments. In May, the project reported that its prototype had demonstrated atomic settlement — where all legs of a multi-currency transaction settle simultaneously or not at all — across multiple currencies and jurisdictions.
The BIS described the July trials as an important milestone and confirmed that testing will continue as Project Agorá advances.
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