The Bank for International Settlements has wrapped up a two-year experiment that could reshape how central banks handle large-value transfers. Working with seven central banks and more than 40 private-sector institutions, the BIS built a prototype that settles wholesale payments in seconds using tokenized money.
The prototype's core promise
Project Agorá, as the initiative was called, aimed to prove that tokenized payments can cut settlement times for wholesale transactions from the current standard of hours or days down to seconds. The prototype relied on a shared ledger where commercial banks and central banks could exchange tokenized central bank reserves and tokenized commercial bank deposits in one atomic step. That means the transfer of money and the transfer of the asset being paid for happen at the same instant — no waiting for batch processing or end-of-day netting.
Who took part
Seven central banks joined the BIS on the project. Their identities weren't disclosed in the announcement, but the BIS said the group included institutions from both advanced and emerging economies. On the private side, more than 40 commercial banks, payment firms and technology providers contributed to designing and testing the prototype. The BIS Innovation Hub coordinated the work, which began in early 2023.
Why settlement speed matters
Wholesale payments — the large transactions between banks, corporations and governments — still rely on systems that can take hours to finalize. A delay means that one party's money is tied up, and the other party faces credit risk until settlement is complete. The project's backers argue that instant, tokenized settlement could free up liquidity, reduce risk and make cross-border payments cheaper. The BIS has long pushed for faster, safer payment systems, and Project Agorá is one of several experiments exploring tokenization for central bank money.
What comes next
The BIS didn't announce a timeline for turning the prototype into a live system. Central banks will have to decide whether to build on the Agorá design or pursue different approaches. Some of the participating institutions are expected to run their own follow-up trials. For now, the project's results are public, and the BIS says it will share the technical specifications with any central bank that wants to study them.
