Tokenized Payments Trial Sees Average Settlement Time of 80 Seconds Across Six Currencies

A consortium of top banks and central banks have successfully completed a trial of tokenized cross-border payments, processing over CHF800,000 in six currencies. The test, known as Project Agorá, involved 30 transactions across 17 scenarios, with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds.

The participating institutions included JPMorgan, Citi, UBS, and 25 other public and private entities from around the world. They used tokenized commercial bank deposits and central bank reserves to support faster cross-border payments, which could potentially reduce the frictions associated with current payment systems.

The trial tested several scenarios, including corporate payments, interbank transfers, intragroup payments, dual-currency transactions, and payment-versus-payment settlement. The participants also used ISO 20022 messages to connect with existing banking infrastructure during testing phase.