BIS Project Agor | Crypto

Twenty-eight financial institutions and central banks completed real-value settlements across six currencies using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Project Agorá completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments, with 28 financial institutions and central banks settling about 800,000 Swiss francs (about $1 million) across 17 transaction scenarios. The BIS said Thursday that the tests used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won and US dollars, with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds. Participants included the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea and the Swiss National Bank, alongside commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered and MUFG. Read more

The Bank for International Settlements' collaboration with seven central banks and more than 40 institutions concludes a two-year project with a prototype settling wholesale payments in seconds. The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released a report Wednesday on Project Agorá, an experimental prototype for cross-border wholesale payment. The BIS said the report shows how seven central banks and more than 40 regulated financial institutions can settle cross-border wholesale payments in seconds once liquidity is locked, while reducing credit and settlement risk through atomic settlement using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits. The initiative marks one of the broadest collaborations yet between central banks and private lenders, exploring how tokenization could modernize global payments infrastructure. Read more