More than 40 private sector financial firms have joined forces with the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and a consortium of leading central banks in Project Agorá, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at enhancing wholesale cross-border payments through tokenization. The project is being facilitated by the Institute of International Finance (IIF) and represents a significant step forward in digital finance.
The firms, selected by the BIS and the IIF, represent a diverse range of business models, institution sizes, and geographical regions. They will work alongside central banks from the UK, France (representing the Eurosystem), Japan, Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Together, these public and private partners will explore the potential of tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank money within a public-private programmable financial platform.
The selection criteria required participants to be regulated institutions in one of the participating jurisdictions, such as commercial banks, payment service providers, or financial market infrastructures. The firms involved must have demonstrated significant involvement in cross-border payments and expertise in innovation. You can download the original public call for participation here.
The project is set to begin its design phase, focusing on how tokenization can integrate commercial and central bank money seamlessly, providing new solutions with smart contracts and programmability while maintaining the two-tier structure of the monetary system. The aim is to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and explore new possibilities for cross-border payments.
The list of private sector partners includes major financial institutions such as HSBC, Santander, BBVA, JPMorgan Chase, UBS, and Mastercard, alongside a host of other firms spanning Europe, Asia, and the Americas. You can download the full list of participants here.
Project Agorá is set to run through 2025, with the IIF convening the private sector participants and the BIS overseeing the collaboration between public and private partners. The ultimate goal is to test the feasibility of a multi-currency ledger for cross-border payments, offering a more efficient and future-proof system for global financial transactions.
This public-private collaboration could represent the next frontier in the digitalisation of money, potentially transforming how cross-border payments are conducted on a global scale.
