BIS Tests Near-Instant Cross-Border Payments with Real Money

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has successfully tested its Project Agorá, a real-value test that demonstrated how tokenized bank money can support near-instant cross-border settlements. The test involved 28 financial institutions and central banks moving a combined CHF 800,000 ($993,000) across six currencies in an average of about 80 seconds.

The experiment covered 17 transaction scenarios, including corporate and interbank payments, single-currency transfers, dual-currency transactions, payment-versus-payment exchanges, and transfers within banking groups. Individual transaction values ranged from CHF 9,000 to CHF 125,000.

The test used tokenized representations backed by real money rather than unbacked demonstration tokens, with funds linked to dedicated RTGS escrow arrangements outside the test environment. Settlement occurred on a shared ledger, and following completion, tokenized balances could be redeemed through the underlying banking infrastructure.