Bank of Canada Joins BIS Project Agorá to Test Tokenized Cross-Border Payments
The Bank of Canada has joined the Bank for International Settlements' Project Agorá to explore how tokenization can improve wholesale cross-border payments.
The project, which combines tokenized commercial bank deposits and wholesale central bank money on a programmable platform, aims to enhance the speed, efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of international transactions.
Project Agorá brings together seven central banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bank of England, and Swiss National Bank, along with over 40 financial institutions to test next-generation payments infrastructure.
The project will continue to examine how an Agorá-type platform could operate within existing legal and regulatory frameworks, including rules on settlement finality and anti-money laundering laws.