ESMA Opens Call for Evidence on Tokenised Collateral for EU CCPs

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, on Friday, 9 October 2026 launched a Call for Evidence on the potential use of tokenised collateral by central counterparties (CCPs), inviting all interested stakeholders to submit contributions by 15 January 2027.

ESMA is seeking evidence on whether, and under what conditions, tokenised forms of collateral could be used safely and effectively by EU CCPs. The exercise examines how tokenisation may affect the transfer, management, protection and use of collateral throughout its lifecycle, from eligibility and allocation through mobilisation, posting, ongoing management and, where necessary, realisation. The paper states that the exercise is not intended to reassess or expand the categories of assets eligible as CCP collateral.

“Tokenisation has the potential to make Europe’s financial markets more efficient, integrated and innovative,” said Verena Ross, Chair of ESMA. “As it moves from experimentation to the mainstream, we must create the conditions for tokenised markets to operate safely and at scale across borders, with legal certainty, interoperable infrastructures and appropriate supervision.” Ross described the Call for Evidence as an important part of ESMA’s broader work to ensure that tokenisation develops safely and at scale across the Single Market.

Klaus Löber, Chair of ESMA’s CCP Supervisory Committee, said: “Tokenisation can support more efficient collateral mobilisation and contribute to the further integration of EU post-trade markets. At the same time, it is key that the fundamental safeguards applicable to CCP collateral remain unchanged. Collateral must be of high quality, legally enforceable, highly liquid, and easily operationally available, including in stressed conditions and following a clearing member default.”

Responses are to be submitted through ESMA’s consultation webpage and will be published following the close of the consultation unless respondents request otherwise. ESMA will assess the feedback received in the first quarter of 2027 and, based on that assessment and its wider work on tokenisation in financial markets, will determine the most appropriate course of action, including any regulatory or supervisory convergence action within its remit.

Scope of the Paper

The Call for Evidence document is addressed to CCPs, clearing members and their clients, market infrastructures including central securities depositories, custodians and triparty agents, and providers of tokenisation or DLT solutions, as well as legal experts, industry associations and other stakeholders involved in collateral management, post-trade services or digital financial market infrastructure. It contains 30 questions spanning operational models, legal considerations, liquidity and haircuts, operational resilience and transversal issues.

Under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR), collateral posted to CCPs must satisfy strict requirements, including legal certainty, liquidity, credit quality, valuation and the ability to be realised in a timely manner. The paper states that tokenised securities could potentially be used to satisfy initial margin and default fund contribution requirements, while tokenised cash, such as tokenised central bank money or other tokenised settlement assets, could support the settlement of variation margin obligations.

ESMA groups tokenised collateral arrangements into two broad implementation models: tokenised representations (digital twins) of assets that continue to be held and recorded in conventional market infrastructures, and assets issued natively on a DLT platform, with hybrid arrangements also possible. In ESMA’s view, ensuring consistency between the token layer and the underlying asset’s authoritative record, and identifying which record prevails in the event of a discrepancy, should be one of the central operational features of digital twin models. The paper asks how tokenised collateral would be handled operationally in a clearing member default, including the main steps from posted collateral to liquidity realisation and any key bottlenecks or dependencies. ESMA notes that, by the time the paper was finalised, the only tokenised collateral project in central clearing it had seen through its work in EMIR CCP supervisory colleges was HQLAᵡ.

Legal, Liquidity and Resilience Questions

On legal certainty, the paper examines whether the traditional collateral structures of title transfer and security interests can be replicated effectively in a distributed ledger environment, and whether a token transfer by itself determines the transfer of proprietary rights or the creation and perfection of a security interest. It notes that the Financial Collateral Directive requires financial collateral to be in the possession or under the control of the collateral taker or of a person acting on the collateral taker’s behalf, and asks whether control of a wallet or private key has legal significance for the creation, perfection or enforcement of collateral rights. It also asks how segregation and client protection can be achieved in tokenised arrangements, distinguishing technical separation through wallets, permissions or smart contracts from legally enforceable separation, and whether client positions and collateral can be ported in a timely manner in a clearing member default.

On settlement finality, ESMA states that protections under the Settlement Finality Directive arise from legal recognition of specific operational events as definitive rather than from technological features. The paper observes that projects authorised under the DLT Pilot Regime have implemented finality-like protections through private law contractual clauses, and asks how finality can be ensured in arrangements where tokenised systems interact with traditional infrastructures.

ESMA states that tokenisation does not alter the economic nature of the underlying asset and should not in itself justify different prudential treatment, but that tokenised forms could introduce liquidity, conversion, operational or cyber risks relevant to collateral eligibility, haircuts or other adjustments. For tokenised cash, the paper lists tokenised central bank money, stablecoins, e-money tokens and tokenised deposits as possible settlement assets, while noting that some, in particular stablecoins in view of potential deviation from par, may not be considered equivalent to cash by regulatory and supervisory frameworks. The paper also asks whether automation and programmability could produce more synchronised collateral calls during market stress, amplifying procyclical dynamics and intraday liquidity demands.

Operational resilience questions cover the requirements of the Digital Operational Resilience Act, the identification of critical dependencies such as ledgers, smart contracts, key management, interfaces and reconciliation layers, testing and assurance including default management simulations, and third-party concentration risk where multiple participants depend on the same specialist providers. Transversal questions address interoperability and fragmentation across platforms, potential new market-structure dependencies and concentration risks, and whether the current legal framework, spanning EMIR, the Central Securities Depositories Regulation, the Settlement Finality Directive, the Financial Collateral Directive, the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, the Digital Operational Resilience Act and the DLT Pilot Regulation, is technologically and system neutral.

The paper situates the exercise alongside parallel official work on tokenisation. It cites the ECB Governing Council’s 2025 two-track plan for settling DLT transactions in central bank money, with the Pontes track providing a near-term Eurosystem solution linking DLT platforms with TARGET Services and the Appia track a longer-term approach; the paper notes that Pontes, by connecting DLT-based solutions with TARGET Services, could play a pivotal role for tokenised collateral while preserving central bank money as the safest means of settlement. It also references guidance issued by CFTC staff on 8 December 2025, Letter No. 25-39, addressing the use of tokenised assets as collateral in derivatives markets, and a no-action letter, Letter No. 26-05 of 6 February 2026, concerning digital assets accepted as margin collateral by futures commission merchants. Further context includes a joint shared vision and call for input on tokenisation in wholesale markets published by the UK Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England in May 2026, expressly covering prudential treatment, settlement arrangements and tokenised collateral, and the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agora with the Institute of International Finance, which examines cross-border payments through multi-currency settlement using tokenised central bank reserves and tokenised commercial bank deposits.