Eurosystem Launches Pontes for Central Bank Money DLT Settlement

The Eurosystem launched Pontes on 21 September 2026, a solution that enables wholesale transactions in tokenised assets to be settled in central bank money, the European Central Bank announced. An initial group of market participants and DLT operators has completed onboarding and is ready to start using the service immediately, with additional participants committed to connecting in the coming months.

The ECB described Pontes as the first initiative under the Eurosystem’s strategic programme to make central bank money fit for a tokenised future and to support the development of the tokenised-finance ecosystem. “The Eurosystem is working to enable a more integrated, innovative and resilient European financial market in the digital age,” said ECB President Christine Lagarde. “We will continue to make progress in close collaboration with the market.”

In the announcement, the central bank defines tokenisation as the process of issuing or representing assets in the form of digital tokens, typically recorded on distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks. For wholesale financial markets, the technology has the potential to make transactions faster and more efficient by bundling multiple steps of an asset’s lifecycle, from issuance and trading to settlement, custody and servicing, and by enabling automation and innovative solutions through smart contracts.

Pontes builds on the outcome of the Eurosystem’s 2024 tests using DLT for central bank money settlement, during which public- and private-sector stakeholders indicated that access to a risk-free settlement asset was crucial for wider adoption of the technology. The service will initially offer a core set of services, to be expanded over time in line with market needs and technological developments. Enhanced features and longer operating hours will be introduced gradually, with full implementation expected by 2028, according to the announcement.

How Pontes Works

Pontes links market DLT platforms with the Eurosystem’s TARGET Services and consolidates the three interoperability solutions previously explored into a single Eurosystem offering, according to the ECB’s Pontes documentation. The documentation confirms that the initial launch took place on 21 September 2026, with further improvements to be introduced step by step.

The service operates a dual settlement model. Market participants can settle transactions on the Eurosystem DLT platform with cash tokens, or in T2, the Eurosystem’s real-time gross settlement system. Final settlement in central bank money for the cash leg is achieved once the corresponding transaction is completed in T2. Delivery-versus-payment and other transactions requiring all-or-none settlement are enabled through the Hash-Link protocol, which provides synchronised settlement across platforms. Pontes also supports end-to-end processing and seamless interaction with T2, which the documentation states improves operational efficiency and reduces the need for manual intervention.

Eligibility for the initial launch extends to any entity with access to T2 within the meaning of Article 4 of Annex 1, Part I of the TARGET Guideline. Eligible market DLT operators comprise central securities depositories authorised under the CSD Regulation; operators of a DLT settlement system or DLT trading and settlement system authorised under the DLT Pilot Regime Regulation; operators of a payment system established in the EU or the European Economic Area and subject to oversight by a competent authority; central counterparties authorised under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation; and credit institutions, investment firms, market operators and other licensed financial institutions authorised under the Capital Requirements Directive, MiFID II or other relevant national legal frameworks in the European Economic Area, provided they are subject to specific financial-market-infrastructure supervision or oversight or have undergone a case-by-case risk assessment by their national central bank under agreed Eurosystem criteria.

Launch Participants

The onboarded market participants are ABANCA, BayernLB, Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Cecabank, Deutsche Bank (DB ), Deka Bank, DZ Bank, the European Investment Bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, Memo Bank, NRW.BANK, Santander and Société Générale. The market DLT operators at launch are Axiology, Cashlink, Clearstream and SWIAT. The Deutsche Bundesbank has also onboarded in a market participant capacity.

“Pontes brings the stability and trust of central bank money to the European tokenised finance ecosystem,” said Piero Cipollone, member of the ECB’s Executive Board. “It will give an important advantage to help it scale.”

The ECB said the market is already showing significant interest in Pontes and that the engagement demonstrates confidence in the potential of the innovation to put Europe at the forefront of the transformation of financial services. The Eurosystem will support this transformation and continue to enhance Pontes in line with evolving market needs.

The launch follows the ECB Governing Council’s approval of a dual-track strategy on 1 July 2025 for settling DLT transactions in central bank money. That decision named Pontes the short-term track, including a pilot phase, and Appia the long-term track, focused on a potential long-term solution for an innovative and integrated European ecosystem. At the time, the Eurosystem planned to launch a Pontes pilot by the end of the third quarter of 2026. Both tracks build on the Eurosystem’s exploratory work on new technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement, conducted between May and November 2024, in which 64 participants carried out more than 50 trials and experiments.

In a 26 August 2026 speech at the Deutsche Bundesbank’s payments symposium in Frankfurt, Cipollone said the Eurosystem intended to go live with Pontes in 2026 and would charge only one-off onboarding fees for the initial launch, citing the Eurosystem’s Pontes Pricing Guide published 19 August 2026. He said the service would then be enhanced gradually, with operating hours extended to 22.5 per business day and immediate settlement finality offered in the Eurosystem DLT; a footnote to the speech notes that initially settlement finality will be achieved once the corresponding movement of funds is reflected in T2. By mid-2028, he said, the Eurosystem plans to offer a 24/7 service with greater programmability, state-of-the-art resilience and multi-currency capability. He also noted that in March 2026 the Eurosystem started accepting marketable assets issued via DLT-based services at European central securities depositories as eligible Eurosystem collateral.

Development of an integrated ecosystem for DLT-based financial services continues under Appia, involving experimentation and analytical work by the Eurosystem, Danmarks Nationalbank and stakeholders from the public and private sectors, with the goal of delivering a blueprint by 2028, according to the launch announcement.