ECB Unveils Pontes, Wholesale Digital Euro Settlement Platform

The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched Pontes, its wholesale digital euro settlement platform, to eurozone banks on September 21, 2026. The system enables lenders to settle tokenized transactions in central bank money for the first time.

Thirteen lenders and four distributed-ledger operators went live on Pontes at launch, including Deutsche Bank, Santander, and Société Générale, alongside Clearstream and Axiology. The ECB will invest a portion of its own funds in tokenized securities on Pontes, joining eurozone banks as an early user of the system.

Pontes connects privately run distributed-ledger platforms with lenders across the 21-country eurozone through the ECB's existing Target2 payment system. The system runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Central European time for now, but the ECB plans to expand its operation to continuous by 2028.

ECB economists warn that widespread use of dollar-denominated stablecoins in Europe could erode the bloc's control over monetary policy. The dominance of Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal in payments adds a separate geopolitical exposure the ECB wants to offset.