From 21 September, Monday, Banks and financial infrastructure providers can settle tokenised assets in central bank money. The debate over stablecoins and tokenised bank deposits is now underway.
On 21 September, Monday, the European Central Bank launched Pontes, a short-term operative solution. Such Eurosystem infrastructure allows to settle with central bank money wholesale transactions on tokenized assets that may also attract the resources of the ECB (press release).
Pontes helps to settle the cash component of a transaction involving a tokenised security, a key challenges in the development of blockchain-based financial markets. The issuance of bonds or the trading and transfer of other financial instruments can take place on a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), but the funds wire can allow the transaction finalization and the delivery of the assets. Pontes connects the DLT platforms for the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services enabling settlement to take place in central bank money, the credit-risk-free settlement asset that underpins the European financial system. The solution also supports synchronised delivery-versus-payment (DvP) mechanisms between platforms.
On 18 September, Friday, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on the sidelines of the Eurogroup meeting in Dublin that Pontes is a “digital euro made available to banks”, through which they can carry out transactions with one another using tokenised assets and DLT (ANSA). “The Eurosystem is working to enable a more integrated, innovative and resilient European financial market in the digital age. We will continue to make progress in close collaboration with the market,” Lagarde said on 21 September, formally announcing the go-live.
ABANCA, BayernLB, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Cecabank, Deutsche Bank, Deka Bank, DZ Bank, European Investment Bank, KfW, Memo Bank, NRW.BANK, Santander e Société Générale, and Deutsche Bundesbank onboarded as market participants. DLT infrastructure providers Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream, and SWIAT also joined Pontes.
Pontes is launching with an initial set of features that will gradually expand ahead of a full implementation by 2028. The project stems from tests that the Eurosystem carried on in 2024 with public and private sector operators. Such trials revealed that the availability of a risk-free settlement asset (central bank money) was an essential condition for the large-scale development of tokenisation. “Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenised finance ecosystem. This will give it a significant advantage in enabling it to scale up”, Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB Executive Board, explained.
On 21 September Cipollone said in a feature on The Economist that the more the financial sector becomes digital and tokenised, the more (paradoxically) it will need a reliable central bank currency. This is the economic rationale behind Pontes, as the ECB itself explained in a LinkedIn post summarizing Cipollone’s thought.
Tokenisation can transform the issuance, trading and settlement of assets, making markets faster, more integrated and more resilient. But at the heart of this vision there must be a reliable monetary anchor. It is essential to combine the efficiency gains offered by tokenisation and DLT with the trust, security and universal acceptance of central bank money. With the launch of Pontes, this vision becomes a reality: by enabling the settlement in central bank money of transactions recorded on DLT platforms, Pontes will provide the next generation of financial assets with the same solid foundations on which traditional finance rests. Central bank money must therefore continue to serve as the common settlement anchor in the new DLT-based financial landscape, and Pontes is the tool through which the Eurosystem intends to transfer this function into the tokenised world.
On 21 September, the ECB also pointed out that further to providing the infrastructure, It started a preparatory work to invest a small portion of its own funds portfolio in tokenised securities. This does not refer to the ECB’s monetary policy portfolio, but to the central bank’s own funds for generating income that cover the institution operating costs.
The initial investments will involve euro-denominated securities that central and regional governments of the euro area, public agencies and European supranational institutions issued. The purchases will settle in central bank money via Pontes. The ECB has not yet disclosed either the amount it will invest or the date of the first transactions. The ECB Executive Board will announce the operational details and timing once completed the preparatory phase, taking into account developments in the tokenised issues available on the market.
The ECB wishes to gain an investor first-hand experience of the entire lifecycle of a tokenised instrument, from the execution of the transaction through to settlement, right through to the systems and portfolio management involved. However, the launch of Pontes raises an issue which could become relevant for banks, fintech firms and stablecoin issuers.
Raphaël Bloch, the cofounder of The Big Whale, an independent provider of digital assets market intelligence to financial institutions, noted that Pontes is not merely a technical improvement to the interbank settlement system: its access rules may also affect the competitive balance between the different forms of digital money available to institutional investors (LinkedIn Post).
The ECB’s documentation does indeed list tokenised deposits among the eligible assets, whilst it specifies precise categories of entities authorised to access the infrastructure. In the initial phase, entities with access to T2 may participate directly. Eligible DLT platform operators, on the other hand, include central securities depositories authorised under the CSDR, operators of DLT Settlement Systems or DLT Trading and Settlement Systems authorised under the DLT Pilot Regime, supervised payment systems, central counterparties and financial institutions authorised under the CRD, MiFID II or other relevant national regulatory frameworks, in certain cases subject to individual assessment.
However, there is not a category dedicated to electronic money institutions compliant with MiCA, the regime for the issuance of certain euro-denominated stablecoins. This is not a definitive exclusion: the framework itself provides for case-by-case assessments in certain instances, and Pontes is set to evolve. However, it raises a practical question. If banks can use tokenised deposits within an ecosystem where final settlement takes place in central bank money, whilst non-bank issuers of stablecoins do not automatically have the same access, the structure of the Pontes rules may affect competition between bank tokenised deposits and stablecoins in institutional euro markets.
Earlier in March 2026, BeBeez reported that the ECB is also working on Appia, a longer-term project for setting the blueprint for the European tokenised financial ecosystem and ecosystem of DLT-based financial services by 2028 that involves the Eurosystem, Danmarks Nationalbank and public and private sector operators (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
The Appia contact group already includes 61 financial market stakeholders and public institutions and took over the activities that the Pontes Market Contact Group and the New Technologies for Wholesale Settlement Contact Group previously carried out. Appia aims to contribute both to the operational development of Pontes and to the definition of the future European architecture for tokenised finance.
Pontes is therefore the bridge that can be used today; Appia will have to decide how the network onto which that bridge will be connected tomorrow will be built.
