Project Agorá Sets New Standard for Cross-Border Payments
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has announced that its Project Agorá has successfully completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments. The project, launched in 2024, aimed to explore how tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves can improve cross-border wholesale payments.
In the latest trial, 28 financial institutions and central banks settled $1 million across 17 transaction scenarios. The test used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won, and US dollars.
The average settlement time was approximately 80 seconds. Participants included major financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered, and MUFG, alongside central banks like the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, and Swiss National Bank.
The BIS said that this milestone marks an important step forward for Project Agorá. Testing will continue as the project progresses.