Eurosystem Launches Pontes to Bring Central Bank Money to Tokenized Finance
The European Central Bank (ECB) has launched Pontes, a solution that enables wholesale transactions in tokenized assets to be settled in central bank money. This marks the first step in implementing the Eurosystem's strategy for tokenized finance.
Pontes builds on the outcome of the Eurosystem's 2024 tests using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) for central bank money settlement, which showed that access to a risk-free settlement asset was crucial for the wider adoption of this new technology.
The market has already shown significant interest in Pontes, with an initial group of market participants and DLT operators completing onboarding and ready to start using Pontes immediately. Additional participants are committed to connecting to Pontes in the coming months.